As a tricky situation unfolds at work, Michael (Josh Burdett) escapes to a beautiful house in the Swedish countryside with his family, which consists of wife Johanna (Amanda Renberg), their two year old son Stig, and teenage daughter Nora (Nika Tallroth) from Johanna’s previous relationship. Nora is the first to notice that there’s no signal, no wifi, no internet whatsoever. It was always Michael’s intention to go off-grid, but he was never going to tell them that beforehand, lest they refuse to go entirely. When he finds a modem buried underneath the floorboards (yes, it was there for a reason), Nora begs to check her Instagram and connect with her friends. She is, after all, missing a very important Saturday night party and needs to hold her crush’s attention somehow. But Nora isn’t the only one who misses the internet, as Johanna needs it for work — especially as she’s the only one bringing in any income at the moment.
When Nora sneakily plugs the modem in, it welcomes a montage of ominous scenes filmed with red night vision, suggesting that evil is watching — a dormant, sadistic demon, in fact. The sound design is creepy here, with heavy breathing and technical distortion underneath a loud, tense score. Nora’s Instagram posts begin to say things she didn’t write, things that cut her off from her friends, and soon enough, Stig goes missing from his crib following distortion on the baby monitor’s feed. The police are called and Nora seems more upset about her social life than her own baby brother vanishing. Although it seemed to take her a day to notice that her Instagram had been tampered with, which doesn’t make any sense.
Written and directed by Tim James Brown (with additional writing by Simon Riley), Modem has an intriguing premise but it falls flat in execution. It moves at a slow pace and rarely becomes interesting enough to hold the audience’s attention. It’s boring for long stretches, making its short runtime drag. The characters don’t feel fully invested in the story they’re telling and, at times, feel divorced from what’s unfolding on screen. Eventually, Michael does uncover the truth behind what’s happening, but it’s underwhelming. Modem might have been better focusing on Nora and how it affected her and her friend group. I’d like to see this film again but with a group of teenagers who book a cabin getaway only to discover there’s no internet until they find a haunted modem and realise all too late that having a break from the internet is a good thing.
For what it’s worth, the filmmaking itself isn’t too bad. There’s beautiful scenery captured by cinematographer David Meadows, in addition to the house’s gorgeous pale yellow and sage green decor. There’s also the odd scene that works, but stiff acting and dialogue occasionally gets in the way. It’s a shame that Modem is let down massively by a weak script that doesn’t dive deeper into our connection with the internet and the evil that could be lurking within. It’s not too bad for a debut, but Brown should consider co-writing his next screenplay or outsourcing the writing entirely.
Modem had its world premiere at Raindance Film Festival on 18th June and is showing again on 24th June in London. Click here for more information.
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