What would you do if you were the last person on Earth? That's the question Graham Skipper ponders in his latest feature film The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine, a thought-provoking and tear-inducing exploration of grief and our drive to survive against all odds. After working on the likes of Suitable Flesh, The Leech, Mind's Eye, and Sequence Break, it marks a return to FrightFest for Skipper as his latest work had its European premiere as part of the festival's Discovery roster.
After a global catastrophe known only as ‘the calamity', the skies turned purple and ‘things' descended on Earth to feed, slowly picking off humanity one by one. Almost 10 years later, Wozzek (Skipper) lives a simple existence in a remote cabin, whittling away his days speaking to himself via a tape recorder and wistfully remembering his days with his late wife Nellie (Christina Bennett Lind). Thankfully, Wozzek is in possession of the Ghost Machine, which has allowed Nellie to travel from the afterlife and slowly regenerate. But as Wozzek waits patiently for his wife's return, a mysterious being known as The Deleterian (Paul Guyet) begins visiting Wozzek every day at midnight to converse with ‘a friend'.
This apocalyptic cosmic horror is not one filled with a dramatic end-of-the-world montage or mind-warping effects. It's a stripped-back, brooding exploration of grief that centres on one man trying to come to terms with his loneliness – and the claustrophobic, single location drives that message home. Wozzek spends his time singing in the vast expanse of greenery where he forages for items, and speaking to himself within his tiny cabin in between flighting visits from a ghostly Nellie.
The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine expertly navigates the conflicting emotions of grief, flitting between Wozzek's black and white, dreary days apart from Nellie, bursting into colour when any sense of happiness or feeling other than numbness enters his consciousness. While there are plenty of scenes of Wozzek crying and desperately wishing Nellie would return, his life isn't without humour and even desire and the film shows grief is far more complex than simply feeling sad as the days pass.
The arrival of The Deleterian brings a fresh quest to Wozzek and makes him question his desire to exist in a world where they are the only living beings left standing. There are plenty of lengthy chunks of dialogue in The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine, but they never feel boring as the mystery of the world the characters inhabit is slowly revealed while pondering the very existence of humanity and what it is to love, to experience death, and so much more.
Skipper successfully explores the full breadth of grief in a minimal location, taking audiences on an emotional rollercoaster thanks to his powerful central performance and expert direction. The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine not only considers the end of the world, it peels apart everything from birth to death and the twisty, surreal human existence – something even stranger than the ‘things' preying on humanity.
The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine had its European premiere at FrightFest 2024 on Friday, August 23.
