Stairs review: Tom Paton and Frightfest seem to go hand-in-hand. Two years ago his film Redwood played the festival and last year Black Site screened. Now he returns to entertain the festival masses with nifty little science fiction Stairs.
Stairs Film
The plot of Stairs is fairly simple: a group of military types get trapped on a staircase en-route to a debriefing. No matter where they try and exit the stairs, they end-up in the same place, minutes before killing some civilians during their last mission. Believing the only way to escape the never-ending steps is to stop their past selves from killing the wrong people, battle plans are set in motion, but will they all make it home alive?
Essentially Stairs would fall into the ‘time loop’ section of science-fiction. That being said, it spins the sub-genre on its head. This isn’t the straight-forward Groundhog Day approach where the characters are doomed to repeat the same events over and over. Instead, the group remain the same and it’s the events around them that either change or stay the same depending on their actions. It’s an interesting and welcome switch up that for the most part works. Where it falters a little is that at times it can be a little confusing to follow. Another slight nitpick is that Stairs opens mid-battle and it takes us a little while to meet and get to know our core players. They consist of several of Black Site’s cast (obviously playing different characters) and a very sweary Shayne Ward. What is really progressive about the team is that there are nearly as many women as men in the team. Traditionally, the military is seen as a very masculine environment and having so many females represented in this world is great to see.
Stairs Film
It was last year that Paton began to embrace both his sci-fi side and aesthetic style. His style is highly influenced by colour; Black Site was bathed in a variety of colours. Here he builds upon that foundation and pushes the colours to absolute breaking point. Each setting is lit in a different way, we get night vision greens, icy blues, and vibrant reds. Add to that some intentionally shot day-for-night sequences, Stairs is a workout for the eyes. These colours do serve more of a purpose than just looking pretty for the audience, they also help signify where and when our characters are.
A few issues aside, for the most part, Stairs succeeds. As with previous productions, Paton has been very ambitious with what is likely a modest budget, meaning things sometimes feel a little too stretched. What Stairs does demonstrate though is Paton’s passion and hunger for the science-fiction genre, and it’ll be interesting to see what he can really do when he gets let loose with a much bigger budget.
Stairs was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest 2019.
