Inheritance (4/5)

Inheritance is a dangerously gorgeous movie. It’s hard to believe it’s actually an indie low-budget production. Visually, you will be blown away while the dark side of the story will keep you on edge!

Inheritance is a horror mystery with elements of a thriller movie. It’s a genre movie that focuses on delivering intense substance in the most beautiful frame.

From the first shot, you know this won’t be your average indie low-budget production. The picture is so damn gorgeous, you feel like it’s a tourism commercial for the coast of California.

Of course, all that does change quite a bit once the story kicks into gear. As gorgeous as both the house and location is, I wouldn’t want to vacation there with the effect it has on our protagonist.

You can watch the trailer for Inheritance right here or continue reading our review below.

Chase Joliet doubles as both lead and producer

Not only does Chase Joliet play the all-important lead character in Inheritance, he also co-produced it. However, this is far from the first time Joliet has done both for a movie.

He was also associate producer on It Comes at Night, where he had a minor role as well. If you remember that particular movie, it didn’t really have many characters at all.

For Inheritance, he delivers spot-on as Ryan Bowman. A man who suddenly finds himself forced to confront the troubled past of his biological family. You can see both the anguish, pain, and sometimes even hope, in even the smallest of facial expressions.

Even though he clearly enjoys producing as well, I hope to see him in many movies as an actor. Watching him in Inheritance is breathtaking – and also heartbreaking at times.

Shooting Star Sara Montez

However, I absolutely have to also mention Sara Montez. She portrays the role of his expecting fiancé, Isi Rosales. Sara Montez offers the perfect blend of being understanding and supporting while also setting limits and wanting answers.

Fortunately, we won’t have to wait too long before seeing Montez again, since she’ll be in the Nosferatu remake. The movie is in post-production but should be out in 2018.

Nosferatu stars Doug Jones (The Shape of Water, Gehenna) as the iconic vampire Count Orlok.

Also in Inheritance, you’ll see the familiar faces of Dale Dickey (TV’s True Blood, Hell or High Water) and Drew Powell (Solomon Grundy on TV’s Gotham).

Husband and wife super team

You probably won’t read a single review without gushing over the visual style of Inheritance. In fact, most people who watch even the first two minutes of the film will wonder how this can possibly be anything less than a big budget production.

If you can achieve this level of gorgeous visuals, why would you ever spend a fortune on production? Except to pay the people able to achieve this, of course.

The team behind the beauty of Inheritance is husband and wife team Drew Daniels and Margaux Rust. They worked as Cinematographer and Production Designer respectively.

This is the feature film debut for Margaux Rust as Production Designer, but she has already gone on to work on several short films, movies, and a TV series. Drew Daniels worked on the critically acclaimed horror sensation It Comes at Night as the director of photography. Just like Inheritance, it was also absolutely gorgeous visually.

If these two worked on more horror movies, the genre would quickly be heading for a lot more awards. To me, it’s certainly a mark of excellence if either of the two works on a movie!

Tyler Savage has arrived!

I found it almost impossible to believe that Inheritance is actually the feature film debut of writer-director Tyler Savage.

However, when you then learn a bit more about Tyler Savage’s experience, it begins to make sense. He worked in development at Warner Bros. and then went on to work as Terrence Mallick’s assistant on four back-to-back features. In other words, he’s seen the very commercial studio side of movie-making and the very (maybe even too) creative side.

With Inheritance, he manages to hit a perfect sweet spot. Tyler Savage tells his story – which he wrote himself – very elegantly while allowing both time and space for a visually creative side.

I absolutely loved the way he intertwined the two. Inheritance just might be one of the most elegant low-budget feature films, I’ve ever seen. And certainly the most beautiful and visually engaging. There is nothing low-budget about the production value!

Inheritance is out on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video from June 15, 2018.

Details

Director: Tyler Savage
Writer: Tyler Savage
Cast: Chase Joliet, Sara Montez, Dale Dickey, Krisha Fairchild, Drew Powell, Alex Dobrenko

Plot

When Ryan mysteriously inherits a house from his biological father, a man he thought long dead, he and his pregnant fiancé travel to the property with high hopes for the future. But curiosity about his deceased father leads Ryan to uncover a dark family history…