A struggling young journalist returns to the hometown he abandoned long ago with hopes of digging up a story about the local psychiatric facility, what he finds instead is a past that refuses to rest in Matthew Fifer’s psychological thriller, Haze.
Joe (Cole Doman) is a man adrift. Recently having left rehab and without a steady job, he does the only thing he can, he moves back in with his estranged father at the family home in Long Island. There is a problem though, his father isn’t there, he went off to work in Florida, leaving Joe at the house alone with his thoughts and little to occupy himself. When he pitches a story about the long-shuttered psyche facility to his editor he’s offered $300 if he can come up with something decent, but the story he thinks he’s telling becomes more and more sinister with every new discovery.
It turns out that the doctors were pioneers with some very nasty therapies that may have led to several deaths on the grounds, but every time Joe goes to look for witnesses, they wind up dead. Lonely and frustrated, he strikes up a relationship with a local named Luke (Brian J. Smith) that burns hot and heavy, but evolves into Joe’s only solace after long days of dead ends and sad stories. Everyone in the town seems to have an angle on the deaths, but no one wants to talk about it and the closer Joe gets to the truth, the more the bodies pile up.
Haze is clearly a post-pandemic film with heavy emphasis on themes of isolation and desire for connection, but it is also an exploration of queer identity and fears as they have evolved over the decades. Cole Doman’s Joe is a man more or less trapped not only by his empty childhood home, but also the memories and regrets of his past. He lives with the detritus of his youth, a part of his life in which his father sought to hide his son’s queer identity from the world and even from himself. When he gets roped into doing yardwork for his neighbor, Mr. Foster (David Pittu), when he needs the money, but even that relationship has sinister overtones that put Joe even more ill at ease.
What Joe needs is support, and with no family and no community to speak of, he throws himself into work, creating community out of the ghosts of the past, with whom he feels a kinship that leads him down a very dark path. Doman is a dynamite performer, both riveting to watch and an inviting empathetic presence that grounds the film, and once Luke enters the picture, we see just how much Joe needed a shoulder to cry on.
Fifer builds Joe from the ground up, we are introduced to him in home videos where his big sister encourages the very young boy to be himself, which sometimes includes sharing her clothes and pushing him to follow his love of dance. Doman takes on the character’s identity with ease, and we feel every bit of longing and melancholy that he is experiencing as the film progresses. Once he enters into this dark mystery at the facility, his empathic nature clouds his objectivity and makes the story personal, leading him down some very dark roads.
Haze is a contemplative film, not slow exactly, but very character conscious, and that’s what makes it special. There is a mystery here that unfolds at a carefully measured pace, allowing the performances and tension to breathe in a way that suggests an incredible amount of confidence – well earned, to be sure – from Fifer. However, the director does a smart thing by making Haze about Joe’s journey, rather than simply caring about solving a case. Proudly and demonstrably queer in both character and theme, Haze still manages to create an experience whereby those elements do not overtake a solid narrative and excellent performances. It is among my favorites of Fantasia this year, and it will certainly surprise a lot of viewers when it lands on Shudder down the line.