Thirty-one-year-old Moray (Caitlin Carver) goes to the woods for a little alone time, but five people and a dog interrupt her quiet retreat. “Call of the Void” (2025) is a cautionary tale advising people not try to be more social since she abandons her plans and accepts one of her unexpected neighbors’ invitation to hang out and go for a hike. After the hike, everyone starts acting strange, and instead of hightailing it out of there, she continues with her plans until she finds a body in the woods. Is it too late for her to escape?
Moray is likeable enough. She enjoys sketching and is mourning her brother, who was a musician. The title is a well-known metaphor for suicidal, intrusive thoughts, but the cause of his death is never revealed. The cause of death is not needed to explain why she decides to hang out with a group of strangers. She is trying to distract herself from her sorrow, and three of the four are musicians. Professor Blackwood (Ted Barton), who teaches psychoacoustics, the human subjective experience of sound, is the guy under her window, and he has a British accent and a cute pup called Parkins so maybe Moray’s lack of reservations is understandable though how many serial killers and kidnappers lure people with the promise of a cute dog. There is not enough money in the world to hang out with the other five though. Lucy (Mina Sundwall) is exuberant and fun, but also a bit self-absorbed, clearly thinks she is the main character and always seems as if her friendliness will turn into a jab. She is constantly making out with her boyfriend, Sterling (Richard Ellis), the professor’s pet, and it is implied that she has been blowing off band practice as a result, much to the consternation of fellow musician, Cole (Christian Antidormi), who wins the race away from affability. Cole thinks Sterling’s music is too lifeless. Darryl (Ethan Herisse) is the most awkward one on screen and not really part of the group, but at least he is painfully aware of his shortcomings.
“Call of the Void” should have made Darryl into the protagonist. The cynical take is that Moray will appeal to a larger demographic, but her story is trite and forgettable even if the moviegoer also suffered the loss of a brother. A protagonist must be dumb enough for bad things to happen to them, but not so stupid that you hate them when they do. Despite Carver’s efforts to make her character seem like a relatable every woman caught up in the unimaginable, Moray lost me when she was not alarmed when some random man was standing underneath her window or when she opened the door when she wasn’t expecting any visitors. The hits keep coming as she keeps ignoring the danger signs whether it is hanging out with a group of people that cannot stand each other, not charging her phone, leaving her phone behind to charge after witnessing weird crap, walking into an obvious trap and ignoring someone’s explicit instructions on how to be safe.
Darryl does not belong, so it makes sense that he does not pick up on the bad vibes and run. He probably ignores his impulse to run because he is never comfortable in any environment. He is Black, possibly neurodivergent and does not fit because of his subject matter interests; however, when he does notice something is wrong, he acts on it. He strikes the right balance of aggravating self-sabotage and survival skills. He gets a scene straight out of “The Red Shoes” (1948) that makes him seem so heartbreakingly sympathetic and desperate. He feels like a less confident cousin of Josh (William Jackson Harper) from “Midsommar” (2019) or Josh (Sterling Macer Jr.) from “Dead Mail” (2024).
“Call of the Void” is a tense movie that will keep its audience invested until the end. The ensemble cast is committed and egoless as they disappear into their roles and essentially play two different characters over the course of the movie. The eerie atmosphere speaks more to cosmic than folk horror although folk music is played, and there is whistling, but the action unfolds in California, not Appalachia so don’t get excited. Everyone sounds amazing, but there is a point early in the film where the singing goes on so long that it may leave people checking to make sure that they are watching the right movie, but it pays off in the end…sort of.
Most viewers will probably feel punked as if “Call of the Void” is all atmosphere and strange implications as opposed to a strong story. Credit where credit is due: writer and director James B. Cox clearly has a cohesive mythological backbone to the story but does not do enough to convey it to the audience. At the one-hour mark, all the answers are given on screen, but you will need to be observant, toggle between the pause, rewind and play buttons and exercise patience.
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There is a print of Gustave Doré’s print of an 1876 wood engraving titled “The Ship Continues to Sail Miraculously, Moved by a Troupe of Angelic Spirits” from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” looks like five (actually an uncountable number) angels looking into at a mysterious figure (it is a ship) in a scene reminiscent of the mysterious opening scene of a wave of atmosphere moving around a black hole. The professor’s notes indicate that at different locations in the forest (missed opportunity to tie in to ley lines), different sounds are emitted. These sounds seem to affect the mushrooms, and if anyone consumes the mushrooms, the sound makes them vulnerable to possession. When the professor was experimenting, Cole got possessed with these angels/aliens then killed the professor so he could bring his other four friends and get a body for his spirit friends. Because these five beings are not human, and they exist through sound, though they are individuals, they seek harmony. Imagine if “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978), another alien spore film, was about otherworldly beings who just wanted to be together and sing. It is kind of sweet, and once again, somehow human beings come out looking worse than a bunch of otherworldly creatures, likely angels, with no concept of autonomy and concept.
It is implied that the Professor was just trying to distract himself because his daughter, Amber, died, and he never got over it. This theme of inconsolable grief and distraction has a through line with Moray’s character but ultimately is too shallow to resonate. How come the kiddie record player started playing randomly? Can they move through sound while not corporeal; thus they found and outed poor Darryl? Because it is cool and moves the story forward, but still feels more like a loose thread than a mystery.
“Banshee Chapter” (2013) called “Call of the Void” and demands its Lovecraftian plot back. Cox’s sophomore film has grand ambitions and a solid framework but ultimately fails in its execution to amount to anything. Most disappointingly, the sound of the possession is not memorable or chilling, which is the literal least that it can do. This tale of an alien possession story is an anticlimactic nightmare for anyone short on time, but hungry for a disturbing film.
