Indie darling Graham Skipper bears it all in a way we’ve never seen before. Carnage Park, Bliss, VFW, Downrange, Almost Human, The Mind’s Eye, and Christmas Bloody Christmas. Those are just a handful of films that have been lucky enough to be graced by the presence of Graham Skipper. Skipper’s directorial feature debut, Space Clown, is exactly what the title makes it out to be, while his second feature film, Sequence Break, was a techno body horror epic. Even though Sequence Break was hit-and-miss for me, it’s still a beautiful film to watch. When I heard the rumblings that Graham Skipper’s latest film would premiere at Chattanooga Film Fest, I knew I had to feast my eyes upon it.
The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine is a tragic tale of love, loss, and bathing in rivers. Wozzek (Graham Skipper) finds himself endlessly reeling at the loss of his wife Nellie (Christina Bennett Lind). The world has been torn into chaos, and Wozzek is presumably the last man on Earth. He spends his days having therapy sessions with prerecorded questions by himself, while he spends his nights trying to bring his dead wife back with, you guessed it, a ghost machine! As the days go on, his frustration rises. But when things seem too good to be true…well, they might be.
Stepping back from the retro horror of Sequence Break, The Lonely Man is a stripped-down and authentic emotional rollercoaster. Writer/director Graham Skipper tells a singular tale with the grace of a filmmaker in their prime. Its simple black-and-white cinematography creates a lonely feeling, putting the audience directly into the same mindset Wozzek exists in. The hints of color sprinkled through various scenes act as a breather for the viewer, taking them out of this monochromatic isolation and into a world of endless possibilities. A film like this exists in the perfect time; a post-COVID world stuck in the deep discourse of man or bear, The Lonely Man proudly boasts BEAR.
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This is no apocalypse film, rather the idea of “The Calamity” is just a perfect backdrop to hammer home the isolationism that Wozzek faces. He’s a man who’s torturing himself through the monotony of repetition, the definition of insanity, in the hopes that someday he’ll get the recipe just right. There’s no question that The Lonely Man is Skipper’s most beautiful work to date. It exists in a realm of simplicity but in the best way possible. There is no need for over-the-top thrills or frills. It’s just about a man and his machine. That’s not to say this film is deadly serious from beginning to end with no levity. Skipper is not afraid to make himself the butt of a few jokes, and these small moments lift us out of this incredibly tragic tale. It’s really a beautiful parallel to life. Just because things have gone to hell doesn’t mean you can’t take a step back and appreciate the small things.
The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine takes a risk with how straightforward it is, and Graham Skipper knocks it out of the park. It makes you think, laugh, and cry. This is truly a one-of-a-kind film. If you’re a fan of Graham Skipper I highly recommend you skip your way to whichever festival it’s playing at and watch it. If you’ve never heard of Graham Skipper, well you couldn’t go wrong with this being your first of his films!