By Steph Cannon
If you’ve ever found yourself at a point in life where you’re desperate to make ends meet, you can understand the depths a person will succumb to in order to just get by. How far some of us are willing to go is a deeply personal matter that is difficult to put on a scale of judgment.
FREELANCE, directed by John Balazs and written by Mike Gerbino, weaves a tale of an independent editor who inadvertently falls down a deep, dark hole of depravity and subsequently finds herself involved in real-life terror and threats from the dark web.
Katie (Nicole Pastor) is a struggling freelancer specializing in cutting low-budget indie films that typically lean toward the adult category. She spends her days holed up in her dimly lit apartment, tirelessly editing clips in order to get by. We soon learn, however, that Katie really isn’t making ends meet as much as she’d like. She’s got a sleazy landlord who hounds her for rent and has mastered begging the barista at her local cafe to spot her coffee.
When Katie receives a mysterious offer from an anonymous source for a lucrative opportunity, she can’t help but accept it. However, once she gets the footage, it becomes clear that this isn’t your typical snuff film.
The content is disturbing, to say the least, and shows horrific and depraved acts of violence. At first, Katie remains professional, but it’s clear she questions the validity of what is depicted on video. As time goes on, Katie finds herself in a complicated web of psychological terror as she attempts to separate her personal life from her career.
FREELANCE is the latest entry in the rising popularity of Australian horror films. What once was cornered into niche blockbusters such as Wolf Creek and The Babadook has found a way to separate itself enough to prove that this genre doesn’t have to be defined just by geographical location.
This film is highlighted by its strong storytelling. It finds a way to grab you from the first few minutes and doesn’t let go until the final frame. A huge part of this is Pastor’s performance. She finds a way to make Katie equal parts relatable, questionable, and empathetic. Ultimately, you feel for her as a person, and that doesn’t change even as the story progresses in depravity.
Pastor delivers a compelling, captivating performance of a woman caught between desperation and morality. It’s easy to say what we all would do in Katie’s no-win predicament, but the truth is that we all may find ourselves making the decisions that she does.
FREELANCE is expertly written and edited. Though its runtime is just shy of two hours, which for a horror film could border on feeling bloated, it utilizes every frame in such a gripping fashion that it feels much shorter than it actually is. It finds a way to pull you in and leave you captivated from start to finish despite the difficulty in the subject matter.
This story, while at times admittedly hard to watch, also digs into your soul and demands you to watch it unfold. It's a psychological descent into how far someone will go just to be able to live. Sometimes, those efforts will pay off. Unfortunately, though, there are moments when it’ll come back to affect you in unspeakably dire ways.
Katie is immediately portrayed as someone who doesn’t deserve that, which is the foundation of horror. After all, you can’t put your characters through hell if the audience can’t relate to and subsequently feel sympathy for them. FREELANCE results in an expert balance of depravity, empathy, and horror. It’s an important film to watch to understand a person's psyche who feels cornered into an impossible situation.
FREELANCE is available now to stream on VOD.