He Never Left (2023)
Directed & Written by by James Morris
Starring Colin Cunningham, Jessica Staples, James Morris, Sean D. Hunter, David E. McMahon, Charla Bocchicchio, & William McAllister.

Horror

★★ (out of ★★★★★)

James Morris’s He Never Left tells the tale of a fugitive named Gabe (Colin Cunningham) who’s on the run after an unfortunate accident and robbery went beyond bad. Gabe’s holed up in a motel, hoping that an old friend is going to help him get out of town fast. But, at the same time, a serial killer from 25 years ago has seemingly returned to a town that “never truly healed” from his original reign of terror. Not a great time for Gabe to be in the midst of Larsen City. And soon enough, Gabe’s escape from the law collides with Pale Face’s bloody return, causing problems for them both.

While there are some fantastic elements at play in He Never Left, such as a story that grasps onto the Gothic of the slasher film subgenre and a searing performance from Cunningham as Gabe, the film never quite reaches the heights it aspires to since a lot of focus in the first half remains on Gabe while Pale Face doesn’t get enough attention. The plot and story of He Never Left becomes scattered, never coming together as well as it should, which is a shame since there are great themes at work and the twin stories of Gabe/Pale Face parallel each other so well. Morris’s film really could’ve been a solid addition to the slasher canon had it been tighter and kept its focus in the right(/bloody) places.
The best of He Never Left is Cunningham’s performance as Gabe. His emotions beam off the screen, as we witness how tortured Gabe is by what he’s done to get him to this point. The Gothic imagery of Gabe having nightmare visions is perfect, illustrating just how haunted he is by the hit-and-run accident that killed his young manager Chad. A particularly poignant scene involves Gabe telling a story about being left behind after a camping trip with his family at eight years old, only for the bloody ghost of Chad to tell him: “I don‘t care.” Ultimately we do see that Gabe is far different from a man like Pale Face, who’s been hiding amongst the people of Larsen City, feeling no remorse and biding his time until he’ll kill again. Gabe’s a man who’s made mistakes, albeit most recently a deadly one, but he doesn’t want to be that type of person anymore, which we see clearly at the end of the film when he makes the first selfless decision he’s made in a long time.
The whole class angle of Gabe’s predicament is interesting because it’s such a realistic and, sadly, prevalent story in society: a man gets out of prison, he’s meant to be reentering society to take part in it again, and he comes up against the economic roadblock of people either refusing to hire him or only hiring him for the worst-paying jobs imaginable. There’s a palpable pain when Gabe recounts his latest job slinging snow cones from a truck and says aloud “Who‘s gonna tip a forty–year–old man…?” Again, Gabe’s story and Cunningham’s performance are the best part of He Never Left, especially when Gabe’s story is paralleled with the unrepentant serial killing of the slasher Pale Face.

A major problem with He Never Left is that there’s a huge amount of focus on Gabe while the killer, for a while, seems to become an afterthought overall. Luckily Cunningham’s performance is good enough to sustain interest in what’s going on, yet even his acting chops aren’t able to make up for the fact that Pale Face fades into the background for much too long. The whole ending is a bit too convoluted, but the worst part is that the ending is anticlimactic and then we’re treated to a bunch of what’s essentially backstory during the credits. It would’ve been better if there were some bits and pieces of what comes after the film’s over earlier on throughout the story so that it doesn’t feel like a bunch of plot is dumped in the audience’s lap when the film has already finished. Not only does it throw off the momentum of the plot, it feels too much like We really want to make a sequel so here’s some extra stuff instead of integrating all that into the rest of the film.
There are moments of brilliance in He Never Left from time to time, from Gabe’s unlucky life, to a moment when one of the marshals tracking down Gabe inadvertently compares Pale Face’s murderous return and the town’s complacency towards him as a legend to the return of cicadas waking up screaming: “These things are dormant for so long that people just forget that they‘re there completely and they don‘t know what the hell to do about it when they come back.” Unfortunately the brilliance falls short in the face of other problems. He Never Left definitely had potential to be a really good slasher, and one that could’ve also spawned a sequel (or two), but it’s held back by a scattered story, not enough focus on Pale Face’s slashing, and an ending that’s not enough juice for the squeeze.