‘It Cuts Deep’ explores surface level relationships | Nightstream Film Fest

Nicholas Payne Santos' It Cuts Deep, which is premiered at the Nightstream Film Festival this week, is a mumblecore relationship horror-comedy that's success wildly hinges on your ability to empathize with the main couple, both Sam (Charles Gould) and Ashley (Quinn Jackson), and your willingness to wade through the movie's murkiness to cut through to a delightfully familiar but satisfying ending.

The movie, which is built on several awkward but all too real conversations that many couples are familiar with, follows the main couple as they go to Sam's childhood home to spend Christmas. As he's returning to the town it's clear that something there still haunts him and paranoia begins to set in. That doesn't phase Ashley who's bent on having a discussion about the future of their relationship.

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As the movie unravels we begin to understand the motivations of both of them, the insecurities driving them further apart and balancing that with the need to be close. All of that is complicated by Sam's former best friend Nolan (John Anderson) who stirs the pot with his knowledge of Sam's past.

At just 77 minutes, It Cuts Deep is nowhere near too long. However, I wish the balance of its time spent on misleading us was spent on the fallout of the movie's predictable but nevertheless fun twist that allows Jackson to do some truly remarkable work. At times she evokes Marilyn Burns' in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which again disappoints me that we didn't get to see more of that part of the story play out.

Still, as a naughty little cut of mumblecore horror, It Cuts Deep hits a lot of the right notes—a lot of them familiar, not all of them perfect, but on a cold fall night, it's somewhat of a breezy comfort to watch.