A young girl, who has a habit of catfishing gentlemen online in order to receive gifts, happens to attract the wrong person, in the horror/thriller Fisher. Check out our review.
Like many horror movies, Fisher opens with a murder scene. A drug-addicted burglar breaks into a shed to steal whatever he finds but accidentally knocks over a toolbox, which in turn gains the attention of a killer. The burglar leaves the scene of his crime but is followed by a man in shadow, and then killed with a spade, before having the words “Thou Shall Not Steal” carved into his chest.
His corpse is found the next morning by a jogger, and the news makes it around the television networks. One such report is witnessed by Clara (Lilly Leann Wright) whilst she is partaking in her favourite pastime – sending single men emails whilst pretending to be someone she is not. Taking pictures off the internet of scantily clad women in seductive poses, Clara uses these pics to aid her in conning her desperate targets into sending her gifts, such as new shoes, gift cards, and more.
We are soon introduced to Clara’s school friend Deja (Nasim) who nosily rifles through Clara’s emails whilst she is in the shower. Confused by the amount of lingerie wearing model pictures and the rather sexually descriptive emails, Deja confronts Clara, but her questions are met with a shrug of the shoulders and played off as a simple game she has invented. Only, this game soon goes awry when Clara tries to catfish the wrong person.
Fisher is not just about stalking through the use of modern technology though, there are some strong religious undertones throughout. We get to meet Micah (Alexander Chastain) and his abusive father, as well as Jacob (Zachary Rodriguez-Gardner) and his deeply religious parents. Religion is highlighted throughout, but this isn’t one of those “God is great and in-your-face” type of movies that we review every once in a while, this is more a tale of how religion can be a dark aspect of our lives and the lives of others around us.
Whilst Fisher has a lot of good things going for it, especially in many of the performances from the actors involved and creating a thriller for modern-day audiences, it also comes with some issues. Now, we are well aware that the movie had obvious budget constraints, but many of the issues we found could have been corrected without any constraints.
For one, the film was far too long for a horror/thriller. Coming in at over two hours in length, the film could have easily cut a good thirty minutes out of its running time, losing some of its filler to make it a more punch affair.
One other issue I found was in how unbalanced the photography was. In some scenes, the cinematography looked excellent and far exceeded what you would expect for an independent movie, whist in other small scenes, like when Deja talks to Clara’s father in the kitchen, for example, the framing, grade, and lighting all looked rather bland. If some more time was spent crafting every scene in the film, we could have had a low-budget feature that looked anything but. One that really could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the big-budget horrors that are released in the cinemas.
Director Cassandra Bryson does do really well with Fisher, her directorial debut, creating and crafting tension that audience members will feel through the screen, especially with whatever little cash was available. I will certainly be interested in seeing what she follows this movie with, especially if she takes note of pacing and having too many characters to follow in a singular plot.
Overall, Fisher is a good thriller and a great directorial debut by Cassandra Bryson. If there is one thing to learn here, it’s that catfishing is wrong, and killing people even more so. Get it watched.
