Sam Was Here (2016)

Sam Was Here aka Nemesis is a little gem I stumbled across; not knowing what I was in for. Looking at the cover it almost has a kind of "Psycho" Norman Bates feel to it. Perhaps it was because of the sign that screams "MOTEL." Also the red light also caught my attention; but I did not assumed it was sci fi for some reason.

The film follows a door to door salesman Sam and his strange day in this isolated town where everyone seems to be afraid of him. In addition, there is this strange red light in the sky and people in masks are trying to kill him.

This movie runs about 75 mins and are categorized as thriller/horror/mystery. Although personally I thought the whole film is leaning towards mystery/thriller with horror elements.

Some of the scenes remind me of the video game Silent Hill 2's character James Sunderland. Especially the scene where he is in the bathroom looking in the mirror and touching his face. Also the scene with the chained up door also has resemblance to the game Silent Hill 4: The Room. I was going to include pictures side by side to show the scary resembles of it; but I did not want to ruin the surprise for those who are not familiar with the game series or SH fans.

The film has a lot of potential; but the execution could have been better and more precise. The whole time this film is like a trip to the 70s' west, although it is set in the 90s. The use of masks and dark metaphors are what saved this movie from being completely incoherent. Each of these little cinematic metaphors are the hints to help the audience figure out what exactly is going on. The film does it subtly and intellectually without giving away too much.

I don't want to give out any spoilers; but since a lot of people on line posted that they did not get the ending and that this movie is extremely confusing. For those people, I feel you and here is my explanation.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

Film/Ending Explanation:

At first I thought Sam was either dead due to a car accident on the road; especially he sees a red light in the skies that deeply resembles a tail light. Hence he is in limbo trying to find his way out, but there is no way out because he is in his own personal limbo.

As the film progresses, I started to realize that there are other people around; not only the masked characters that were trying to kill him. Plus there are letters that he is picking up here and there addressed to various characters. This indicates that he is alive and things "are" in fact happening.

This film is different and out of the box because instead of focusing on the person who suffers from mental illness. It focuses on one of his persons as its main protagonist hunted by his other personas.

4/5

Must watch if you like to think and figure things out.

Analysis:

Sam:

He is in fact the killer that everyone is looking for but he seems to suffer from memory loss or psychosis that he did not remember who he is or what he has done.

Letters addressed to various character/ mask characters:

These are actually personas of Eddy the radio host; and Sam is one of his personas but he is bad so his other personas is trying to get rid of him.

Then why is the maid cleaning off dried blood from the tub in which the personas has killed Sam if Sam wasn't real?

Eddy could have hurt himself really bad; since there were no body discovered in the tub just dried blood.