Prepare to be thrown for a loop upon seeing Jethica. Now in select theaters, the offbeat delight is a terrific blend of different genres across its tight 70-minute length. The film takes place in New Mexico, where Elena (Callie Hernandez) is hiding out after a freak accident. She runs into Jessica (Ashley Denise Robinson), an old friend from high school — who has a stalker. And when the stalker suddenly shows up at their door, the two must seek help from beyond the grave to get rid of him for good.
Jethica premiered at SXSW last year and was also screened at the latest Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. Now, it's out to the world, and I suggest seeing it with your friends. You'll laugh, jump in your seat... and maybe even cry a little. Jethica was conceived and produced during the COVID-19 pandemic and thus reflects themes of isolation, disconnection, death, and the unknown. After all, the pandemic itself is becoming a hot subject in film.
Well-Acted and Full of Surprises
Jethica opens with Elena (Hernandez) and a one-night dude stand having a chat inside a car. Right off the bat, director Pete Ohs and his co-stars/co-writers are going against cliches: Elena isn't interested in forming a connection with the guy, but he wants to get to know her. After finally being convinced to share about her past, Elena reveals that she ran away to New Mexico to hide because she killed someone while texting and driving. And then, Quentin Tarantino would be proud as we flash back to the past to see events unfold that ultimately lead back up to this backseat exchange.
Once Elena runs into Jessica at a gas station, they end up back at Elena's grandma's trailer to hang out and catch up. They venture out to a New Mexico landmark, and that's where Jessica sees what she thinks is her stalker, yet again. But there's a twist as to why she should be even seeing this guy, and that's when Elena eventually loops in some supernatural forces to help rid Jessica's life of "Kevin."
Speaking of Kevin—Will Madden's scene-stealing performance as the manic stalker is perhaps the film's strongest point. It's also during these scenes that Ohs again goes against cliches: Given Kevin's supernatural existence, one might think he wouldn't say much. But Kevin is a ranting, raving lunatic of sorts, which is where genres continue to be blended. We can't help but laugh at his nonstop banter as he loiters outside Elena's trailer. The film overall is full of quirky, dead-panned humor, especially when Elena and Jessica's more stoic, matter-of-fact approach to the stalker situation counters Kevin's loud-mouthed monologues. There's biting sarcasm throughout, and it all builds to a solution to the haunting issue that we certainly don't see coming. And that's a good thing.
More About the Writer/Director/Editor/DP
Pete Ohs is a four-time regional Emmy Award winner and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2013. "As far as references go, the only film I asked the actors to watch before we started production was the Coen brothers' Blood Simple," said Ohs in a statement. "And then one night during the shoot we decided to watch Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. I can see these two classic movies in Jethica's DNA — both noir thriller and paranormal comedy. The challenge of melding genres was exciting, and the reward of trying something new is what keeps me filming."
The creative process was an experiment and true collaboration with the four main actors. They went out and shot without a script, as Ohs told me directly. He wears well the hats of director, editor, and co-writer, his talents as a cinematographer take the cake. He does a terrific job of capitalizing on the free, enormous New Mexico skies that hover over the central location — the infamous, nothing-to-write-home-about trailer, which is a real-life Airbnb option — but the handheld camera that's also mixed in provides an excellent variety of shots that parallels the excellent blending of genres in the storyline.
Plus, Ohs effectively utilizes a haunting, lo-fi score by John Bowers’ score that gives off vibes of John Carpenter — who's still making music well into his 70s, by the way. One might be quick to argue that Ohs shouldn't have made the daring choice to switch to more comedic tones, especially in the third art. But I'd say it was a clever choice to successfully arrive at a darkly "happy ending" of sorts involving closure and redemption.
And lastly, what's with the film's strangely spelled title? "We were at a Q&A somewhere," co-star Ashley Denise Robison recently told MovieWeb. "I can't remember who, but one of us emphasized, like, 'That's how I hear my name right from [Kevin] saying it, whether it's that much of a lisp or not. That's all that I hear all the time.' Which is a really interesting, kind of psychological twist. And that feeling of like, somebody that you don't like or somebody that you hate, just like the way that they say your name, it's like, "Oh, God." You know? And I think it's fitting with the tone of our film, which is dark comedy, horror, thriller and ghost story." The title, therefore, is a good example of how this seemingly supernatural story also manages to be relatable, in terms of the struggles we might face through human interaction.