CFF 2024: The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine

“The Lonely Man with the Ghost Machine” is an impressive, deeply meditative, ultra-low-budget affair about a broken man in a broken world. 

You may not immediately recognize the name of Graham Skipper, but if you’re a genre fan, you’re no doubt familiar with his work. He’s an indie horror mainstay, having appeared in too many films to name. Most recently, you may have seen him in films like Suitable Flesh, The Leech, Christmas Bloody Christmas, and Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge.

He also wrote and directed the surreal sci-fi romance Sequence Break, which won Best Feature at the Chattanooga Film Festival in 2017. Though it was well-received by critics, audiences didn’t connect with it, and it failed to get the love it deserved.

Now he’s back with another strange, deeply personal film that veers far off the beaten path.

The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine is another outing I suspect mainstream audiences will shun. I also suspect Skipper isn’t all that concerned with that.

This feels like a film pulled from the depths of Skipper’s soul, with resonance and meaning, and those who connect with it should do so on a profound level.

Lonely Man begins in a moment of terror and loss, a striking and adrenaline-inducing scene shot in color before we fast forward in time and transition to black-and-white.

Skipper will continue to shift between these two cinematic styles throughout the film, typically showing flashbacks to a happier time in color while keeping most of the present-day horror drenched in monochromatic moodiness.

Wozzek (played by Skipper) and his wife Nellie (Christina Bennett Lind) are living a peaceful existence in an isolated cabin while the world teeters on the brink of extinction following a global catastrophe involving man-eating alien creatures hellbent on devouring the whole of humanity.

The couple’s sanctuary is shattered when Nellie is taken while strolling outside the cabin, leaving Wozzek heartbroken and driven mad by the crippling loneliness.

In a desperate attempt to alleviate his suffering, he builds a machine he believes can bring Nellie back from the dead. When it seems he’s on the cusp of making the impossible a reality, there’s a knock at the door.

Suddenly, the last man on Earth has a visitor.

The mysterious stranger, who claims to be his neighbor, starts visiting him nightly, speaking to him through the walls of Wozzek’s cabin.

These conversations with the creature that calls itself The Deleterian become increasingly disturbing and revealing, as Wozzek is pressed by the unwelcome visitor to do some soul-searching.

For almost the entirety of the film, it’s just Wozzek talking to himself or with the unseen entity. The action never leaves the claustrophobic cabin.

While that doesn’t sound like much to hold your attention, it’s a testament to the power of Skipper’s performance and the strength of his writing that LONELY MAN never feels dull or tedious.

When we finally do get the creature revealed near the end of the film, it’s not at all what you expect. In fact, many will take umbrage with the ultra-low-tech, DIY presentation of an entity that has been utterly terrifying thanks to Paul Guyet’s chilling voice work.

That said, I found the depiction of The Deleterian to be whimsical and charming, a throwback to the early days of B-movie sci-fi horror. It’s a creative use of an extremely limited budget.

It also works, given Wozzek’s potentially shaky mental state and escalating existential crisis.

Ultimately, this is not a creature feature, and it’s not really about the end of the world but the end of one man’s world.

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Whatever is outside Wozzek’s door, and whatever horrors have befallen the world for unexplained reasons, are irrelevant. All that matters is how our titular “lonely man” confronts the pain of his own existence and wrestles with truths too agonizing to face.

Despite feeling much like a one-man show stage play, with its small-scale production and self-contained world, the film has an almost Lovecraftian cosmic horror, with a vastness conveyed even if it’s never shown.

That’s the power of Skipper’s writing and filmmaking talent.

The film’s finale is a work of art, serving up a nasty twist that turns the story on its end, reminiscent of a classic Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt episode with its emotional gut punch and thought-provoking themes.

This is indie filmmaking at its finest, a true labor of love made for a few thousand dollars. Mainstream moviegoers will, perhaps, struggle to connect with this stripped-down rumination on loneliness, isolation, and complicated human relationships.

However, the arthouse crowd should find much to love about this beautiful and haunting blend of science fiction, philosophy, and human horror.

While you wait for this one to become available outside the festival circuit, I urge you to check out Sequence Break, a Cronenbergian homage to 80s horror films and classic technohorror, on Shudder or VOD.