Misper, the debut feature from director Harry Sherriff, is an atmospheric crime drama set in a decaying seaside town. The film explores the uneasy aftermath of a young woman's death, focusing on grief and melancholy rather than the typical tropes of the genre.
The story follows Leonard (Samuel Blenkin), a meek hotel concierge with a crush on his colleague Elle (Emily Carey). Dressed in a red raincoat with short dark hair, Elle recalls Jordana Bevan from Richard Ayoade's Submarine. Their awkward yet sweet exchanges hint at a potential connection, but Elle disappears one day. When her body is found, the hotel staff grapple with the chilling bereavement.
Stylistically compelling, Misper builds an unsettling atmosphere through its setting: a crumbling, mostly vacant hotel with beige stained walls. Leonard's shell-shocked expression and his comment, "I feel like I'm in a horror film," underscore the sense of staleness. The film dabbles in horror with nightmarish flashes of Elle haunting Leonard, but it does not fully embrace the genre.
Nor does it follow the crime drama path, refusing to offer salacious details about Elle's death. The nature of her murder and the killer are pushed to the periphery. Instead, the film foregrounds the bafflement, melancholy, and dread faced by the hotel staff as they attempt to return to normality. The bleak misery drifts into the eeriness of the uncanny, transcending tired crime drama conventions.
