Vague Visages’ Séance review contains minor spoilers. Vivian Kerr’s 2024 movie features Scottie Thompson, Jilon VanOver and Connor Paolo. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Last August, I described Vivian Kerr’s feature debut Scrap (2022) — a Los Angeles-based indie dramedy — as “too clean” and hoped that the director would focus more on visual style and attention to detail the second time around. Well, here we are — Séance has arrived, and it’s a much more polished and thoughtful film. Set in 1895 California and loaded with Victorian style, the chamber piece production examines the relationship dynamics amongst two conflicted women and their proud husbands, with the concepts of infidelity and empathy anchoring the narrative. Séance doesn’t quite match the thrills of the most trendy psychological horror flicks, yet its mature themes will resonate with adult viewers and anyone struggling to move on from the past.

In spirit and style, Séance reminds of a film like Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019). The core drama shifts back and forth between two women, with Scottie Thompson (NCIS) starring as a novelist named Emma Strand and the aforementioned Kerr co-headlining as Lillian Ford — a traumatized mother whose daughter tragically drowned. Séance’s opening beach scene works wonders, as the writer-director establishes the personalities of the four main characters, all the while incorporating small filmmaking flourishes via Johanna Coelho’s roaming cinematography and Ryan Gottshall’s subtle yet effective sound design, in collaboration with sound mixer Rob Fillmore. As Emma essentially challenges the manhood of her passive artist husband (Connor Paolo as Albert), Lillian drifts further away from her stoic partner, George (Jilon VanOver), who — in a slick narrative wrinkle — was previously married to Thompson’s protagonist. From there, the drama mostly takes place within a mansion as Emma and company muse about the best of times and the worst times while a dark energy consumes them all.

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Séance’s most obvious flaw, a lack of jump scares, might not be a flaw whatsoever. Some die-hard genre fans will presumably expect extreme violence à la Midsommar (2019) or gory kills à la the 2024 chamber piece movie Abigail, but this tale’s effectiveness and beauty emerges through the rich character conversations, the exceptionally strong acting and the overall mise-en-scène. With that said, Séance does indeed feel more like a dramatic thriller than a traditional horror film, perhaps because it’s Kerr’s first dive into dark territory. As an actress, however, she steals various scenes with her ability to at once communicate deep trauma and hope for a better future. Meanwhile, Thompson taps into her character’s existential dread, which is amplified by the chiaroscuro lighting and Emma’s passive-aggressive dialogue with the mild-mannered Albert and the slimy George. In general, indie horror films suffer from unnatural dialogue and lame profanity (“you BASTARD”), but there’s fortunately none of that in Séance. Each sequence (and each conversation) plays out naturally, allowing the audience to connect with the four main players.

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Structurally and tonally, Séance is a consistent thriller, a film that immerses viewers into the focal setting and offers small clues through its sound design, whether it’s a voice calling out to Emma or a music box that pierces the subconscious, because of what it represents to Lillian. Kerr can hold her own alongside anybody as an actress, but the young director has now proven that she’s a true auteur, a filmmaker who polishes and innovates her style through experience.

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film essays at Vague Visages.

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