SATOR – Another cabin, another woods, but ‘Sator’ goes in deep. Deeper than most, anyway. Whereas countless others take the route of simply setting up and lighting the blue touch paper on a resource-friendly situation with inbuilt horror value (an isolated hut in the middle of a huge forest is never not going to lend itself to the genre), ‘Sator’ totally delves into the darkness beyond the treeline. It’s really, really moody. So much so that I imagine many will find its whole enterprise a bit of a turn-off; judging by what I’ve read online it does tend to split viewers into those who find its murk laborious to sit through, and those who go with and get something from the constant twilit atmosphere. From what I’ve said, you’ll gather it’s not big on plot. The approach is indirect, something you’ll just have to figure out between the lines, but basically a guy who lives in a cabin becomes increasingly obsessed with a woodland entity known as ‘Sator’, and we follow his unravelling and discover how it all relates to his similarly involved family. Its final section ramps up to provide a few gory thrills and some more obvious creature imagery, but most of ‘Sator’ is as tortuous as waiting for something dreadful to happen. I fully intend this as a compliment, I really admire the film’s ability to cast such a long shadow of unease without faltering or in my view becoming tiresome. It might not work as well if the visual ambience, the look and feel of the deep woods, was lacking, but Jordan Graham has done an excellent job on that side (and pretty much every everything else – he directed, wrote, photographed edited). In the end it depends, as always, on what you want. More than likely it won’t sate your desire for labyrinthine storylines packed with drama and event, but if your idea of horror is a journey to the heart of the woods, you might find ‘Sator’ waiting for you there.
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