New Scientist - USA (2021-02-27)

28 | New Scientist | 27 February 2021

Film

Synchronic

Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead

Now available to rent online

WHEN they aren’t busy being

the darlings of indie horror

cinema, film-makers Justin

Benson and Aaron Moorhead are,

by their own admission, armchair

enthusiasts of astrophysics,

philosophy and futurism. That

heady cocktail of interests has

influenced all their films to date,

but perhaps none more so than

their latest and most ambitious

creation: Synchronic.

The film stars Anthony Mackie

and Jamie Dornan as paramedics

and friends Steve and Dennis,

who are called out to a series of

unusual drug overdoses across

New Orleans. Although the

victims are found in very different

circumstances – one has been

stabbed by a centuries-old sword,

while others have been burned

or frozen to death – they have all

taken Synchronic, a designer drug

based on the hallucinogen DMT.

Aside from those grisly

incidents, the first third of

Synchronic is a slow-burning

drama about the quiet miseries

that Steve and Dennis are

mired in. Steve is a disaffected

womaniser who has recently been

diagnosed with a brain tumour,

while Dennis’s marriage is

strained by a new baby and his

daughter Brianna’s teenage angst.

Thankfully, these personal

troubles are just a vehicle for a

much more intriguing concept.

When Brianna (played by Ally

Ioannides) vanishes after taking

Synchronic at a frat party, Steve

starts to buy up the remaining

supplies. He eventually meets the

drug’s creator, Dr Kermani (Ramiz

Monsef), who matter-of-factly

Effects of a time-warping drug

Starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan, Synchronic is a thrilling film

about a strange drug that sends you back in time, says Bethan Ackerley

reveals that Synchronic

manipulates your pineal gland,

the same region of the brain

as Steve’s brain tumour. It is

reminiscent of the resonating

device in H. P. Lovecraft’s short

story From Beyond, which lets

the user see alternative planes

of existence. However, instead

of seeing monsters from

another dimension, Synchronic

changes how you experience

the flow of time.

Kermani explains that time

isn’t linear, instead working like

a vinyl record: you play one track,

but the other grooves are always

there. “Synchronic is the needle,”

he says, letting people travel to the

past while physically remaining

in the present. The catch is that

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were clearly hamstrung

by a lack of funds.

The environments in the

past are severely limited, with

a few brief glimpses of deserts

and snowstorms being about as

adventurous as the film-makers

can afford. Although they make up

for that with some clever tableaux

and eerie, roving camerawork, you

still sense that Synchronic would

have benefited immeasurably

from having twice as much cash,

and twice as much time spent

mining the horrors of history.

All that said, Benson and

Moorhead have still created a

grim, uneasy thriller with truly

hair-raising moments. For all that

I mourn the unfulfilled potential

of the concept, Synchronic is yet

more evidence that these film-

makers should be given the tools

with which they can fully realise

their mind-bending ideas. ❚

you have no control over where

you end up, and if you manifest

in the middle of a forest fire or

in the path of a rampaging bull,

you will still die in the present.

As soon as Steve starts

experimenting with Synchronic

in an attempt to find Brianna, the

film’s real potential emerges. He

approaches the task methodically,

rationing out his limited supply

to establish the rules of the drug.

I won’t reveal much about which

time periods Steve travels to, but

his encounters are surreal and

upsetting in equal measure. The

past is a particularly dangerous

place for a Black man, and the film

is at its best when it explores how

time travel is disproportionately

terrifying for Steve.

While there are a few holes

in the plot – why does the drug

never take people to the future,

for instance – the potential of

Synchronic’s central conceit is

obvious. Unfortunately, while the

film-makers are no strangers to

small budgets, their ambitions

Jamie Dornan (left)

and Anthony Mackie

play paramedics

“ Time works like a

vinyl record: you

play one track, but

the other grooves

are always there”