Miles is a young man who is deathly afraid of death.  It might have something to do with the horrific car crash he experiences in the opening moments of the movie (but did he really, or did he just have a vision of it? I was never clear). He is so nervous and anxious about the concept of dying, of not existing, that he takes out an ad offering a $30,000.00 reward to anybody who can show definitive proof of the afterlife.

This is the premise of We Go On, the new movie by Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton, who also brought us YellowBrickRoad, a creepy little slow-burner, back in 2010.  Miles (Clark Freeman) and his very (very) overly-protective mother Charlotte (Annette O’Toole) sift through the various responses and end up with three very good prospects who promise to satisfy the conditions of his challenge. But are they all that they claim to be?

We Go On is a well-built film, that relies on character development and incremental revelations to create its own sense of foreboding. As Miles gets closer and closer to his truth, he begins to relate to his world and his mother differently, in subtle ways.  His search for answers and peace seems to just lead to more questions and dead ends (heh).

Until…well, I shan’t spoil it, but there was a majorly weird and scary scene roughly halfway through that made me sit up and take notice. It’s very well-done, frightening, and heart-breaking at the same time.  It sets the tone for the rest of the movie, and I was a little on edge throughout, thinking that scares were just around the next corner.

Clark Freeman is terrific as Miles, searching for answers and finding much more than he ever bargained for. He owns every frame of this movie, and his nervousness and anxiousness over the idea of dying permeate and color every action and every line of dialogue. I felt so sorry for him (his dad died when he was very young) and just wanted to reach out and calm his fears.  I was with him every step of the way, scared with him, sad with him, angry with him.

His mom, Charlotte, was a bit of a problem for me. I mentioned she was protective of her son, but that is understating things. A lot.  There are times when she is irrationally mean and verbally abusive to the people trying to help her son. It’s obvious that she’s still hurting from her own husband’s death (her son confronts her at one point: “Don’t you want to know?’) and views Miles as her only remaining family, to be shielded at all costs, but Annette O’Toole’s characterization was over the top, a bit much for me.

Thanks to cinematographer Jeffrey Waldon, We Go On looks fantastic. Very moody, and with a quality that suggests a much higher budget than I assume they had to work with.  There are a few well-placed jump scares that caught me by surprise, but weren’t out of place in a movie about the spirit world and the afterlife. Holland and Mitton should be very proud of this movie that goes to some very deep and dark places, and does so with style. Uncle Mike sez check it out. The trailer’s below!