A Walk Between Dreamy and Nightmarish - Reviewing Jordan Graham's "Sator"

Having finally seen The Green Knight that I longed for so much, I completed viewing pretty much all the movies in my schedule for the spring-summer season and it’s time to pick a winner… which really wasn’t easy because there were so many good ones this time!!!

Just to give a little reminder, check here to see my complete lineup.

There are a couple of movies that I didn’t get to watch this past season, but I’m sure I’ll catch up. Also, I watched a few movies outside of my pretend-festival and I ended up loving and here they are: In the Earth; The Empty Man and Come True.

From my initial lineup, an unholy s-trilogy stood out and made the top 3: Spiral, Son and Sator. And the indisputable winner of my Stay-At-Home Film Festival Spring-Summer is, the super original folk horror/psychological horror SATOR!!!

Sator would help me, was teaching me, training me to be a person

It’s really hard to describe what Sator does with you… With no use of music at all, gorgeous, serene but also eerie forest pictures and a very long fuse to build up serious tension, the film could be the definition of atmospheric in the dictionary, but that's by far not all it has to offer.

In an intricate backwards-puzzle we watch the story of Adam unveil. Adam who lives an isolated life in the woods with his dog, Adam blowing a whistle in the forest as if in search of something and Adam visiting his grandmother with his brother Pete. The visits at Grandma’s house, shot exclusively in black and white in contrast to colored scenes outside of her house, consist of a heavy mix of improvised conversations between Grandma and Pete and pseudo-documentary style flashbacks and are the true meat of the story. They are the tunnel that will slowly connect Adam’s current life and habits to the death of his parents and the ghost of a girl called Evie.

You see, besides being director Jordan Graham’s real grandma, Deborah is no ordinary grandma by any means; she is the juncture between her family and a forest demon called Sator, who in her past has often guided her through life through automatic writing seances and voices only she could hear. As it becomes more and more clear what kind of evil Sator embodies, Adam will be overwhelmed by the weight of what he has conjured, inevitably leading to calamity and tragedy.

That I am insanely freaked out by horned monsters and the fact that director Graham’s grandmother claims to have lived with Sator in her own real life (read the interview) makes this story all the more chilling to me. But these are by far not the only sources of the unease you experience watching Sator – the visual as well as thematic darkness, whispers in unknown tongues, the use of “older” media such as distorted video and cassette tape recordings, the stripped setting, freaky monster design and the absolute solitude Adam lives with make up only some of the nightmarish elements. Conversely it is one of the most beautiful stories out there.

Sator is original, genuine and special through and through -  My only worry was, and I have been pondering on this a long time, if using the very intimate story of his grandmother’s life doesn’t have something exploitative on director's part. But having watched Sator many times over I can assuredly brush those worries aside since Grandma June owns the stage given to her and readily turns this movie into her own narrative.

Jordan Graham didn’t only direct this movie and drew from an extremely personal well to do so. Without wanting to be dismissive of the actors' extraordinary work, it is only fair to call Sator a one-man-project in the true sense of the word with Jordan Graham being director, writer, producer, cinematographer and editor; having paid the movie’s expenses from his own pocket (even the term shoestring budget is overrated here) and even having built the cabin, done the decoration and costumes all himself. That alone deserves the highest of praises and I'm really hoping that he gets the chance to make many more movies that we can enjoy!

Don't miss Sator if you like slow burning, indie folk horror.