Courtenay Webber

Stop motion telekinesis is just the beginning. Though riddled with familiar motifs (nods to Bernard Herrmann’s scores, Stanley Kubrick's unnerving spaces, the mesmerizing portraits of women in VERTIGO and LAURA), the second film in Jamie Travis’ PATTERNS trilogy achieves a singular blend of horror, melodrama and musical. This installment centers on Michael, a nervous guy puzzling over an unexpected Chinese takeout order. Even as some of the mysteries from the first PATTERNS are revealed, the trilogy plunges deeper into a quicksand of shared dreams, hidden anxieties and romantic yearning.

The first film in Jamie Travis’s PATTERNS trilogy suggests a surrealist homage to the psychologically charged set designs of auteurs like Alfred Hitchcock and Douglas Sirk. The premise is simplicity itself: a woman waits for a call in her immaculate apartment. Comfortably immersed in her bath, she reveals a strange dream to the caller. Travis’s calibrated formal manipulations work up a terrific surface suspense.

A psychological experiment between two friends spirals out of control. How bad could it be?