The title of the Vang brothers’ artful but slightly ponderous chiller refers to purgatorial spaces both corporeal and supernatural. A double-edged narrative etched in trauma and despair, They Live in the Grey sees a clairvoyant social worker tormented by visions of the unquiet dead. At the same time, the death of her son leaves her battling through her own personal limbo. This guilt drives her determination to investigate a potential case of child abuse with a ghostly culprit. It’s a sombre subject, treated with appropriate seriousness; although some elliptical storytelling slightly holding the viewer at an emotional arm’s length, even as it elevates its intriguing premise.
It’s fair to say that Claire Yang (Michelle Krusiec, known for playing silent movie legend Anna May Wong in Netflix’s Hollywood) is struggling. She blames herself for the death of her young son, and is estranged from her policeman husband (Ken Kirby). She directs her pain and grief vicariously, trying to stop a couple (Ellen Wroe and J.R. Cacia) from having their young daughter (Madelyn Grace) removed after her school has been alerted to her frequent injuries. Far from a standard case, Claire believes she can convince the spirit tormenting the family to depart.
The Vang brothers ably set up Claire as a location of the film as much as a character. There is rarely a moment where she is free from the dread of bring a conduit for the dead. She’s constantly being sought out by the bleeding shade, screaming remnant, or beseeching soul of someone who’s traumatic death has tethered them to the living world. Krusiec, for her part, finds admirable depth in a role that often lies in the extremes of cataleptic apathy or adrenalised terror. As long as she’s onscreen, and she’s rarely off, there’s a tension. One which is expertly exploited with subtle changes in camera perspective, or the almost imperceptible movement of an object. Even the humble, maligned jump scare is used to excellent effect. The result, while revelling in its genre conventions, never feels like it cheapens the deadly seriousness of its subject matter.
The film’s main problem boils down to the conflicting priorities of its narrative. Despite the ostensible central strand being Claire’s investigation of the haunted family, this too often fades into the background. It also means what was set up to function as a metaphor for Claire’s trauma – and a redemptive fulcrum – gets overrun by the very effective, but more overtly harrowing focus on Claire’s own ghostly visitors. This also affects the pacing, as we’re given no sense of time (until Claire’s irascible boss tells her she’s spent too long on the case), which leaves most of the proceedings in some vague, liminal ‘present’.
There has been no recent shortage of movies using terror tactics to explore grief and trauma, and They Live in the Grey is among the most sombre and suffocating of the lot. It’s possible that it’s so respectful of its subject and themes that it rather tiptoes around when it should be confidently striding for the heart of the matter. At times it hits the sweet spot where it is fraught with both fear and emotional weight, but its lopsided pacing leaves us wishing those genuinely powerful moments are more frequent than they are.
Available to stream on Shudder from Thu 17 Feb 2022