Three friends discover a dead body while on a camping trip, but cannot agree on whether or not to tell the police.

Oh, nothing to see here, just three guys with a dead body, no biggie at all. Silent Panic (2018) is no “weekend at Bernie’s” however, it is a serious, melodrama written and directed by Kyle Schadt. As their crime of neglecting to report the murder eats away at them, their new reality eats away at their friendship and they become increasingly paranoid and horrified by the corps’ presence.

Three friends — a wrongfully convicted man, a single father, and an everyday-man type — go camping one evening, hiking away from their car to their campsite somewhere in the Los Angeles mountains. After spending one night together bonding they hike back to their car, and while loading their bags they discover the dead body of a young woman who’s mysteriously been left in the trunk. After their initial shock, the three each suggest different ideas on what their next steps should be. Bobby (Joseph Martinez) wants to call the police, Eagle (Sean Nateghi) wants to leave it, and Dom (Jay Habre) doesn’t know what they should do. Unable to get cell service, the friends decide to take the corpse with them and decide on a plan after getting back to their lives, but they find hiding the body from the ones they love, as well as the police, might just be harder than they were thinking. The friends begin to let the presence of the dead body eat away at their psyches and affect their relationships with each other and their loved ones, sending two of the friends spiraling out of control. The situation comes to a head when one friend lapses back into old habits in order to cope, sending them scattering to different places in life and location, despite their longtime friendship.

Though each of the friends was adorable aesthetically, I could not get into their performances nor their chemistry together. The movie used random friendly banter, which I think was supposed to make them seem like long-lasting friends, but their delivery was awkward and noticeably not familiar, as if they were… acting. On some of the scenes, the acting was very forced and coupled with the music, which either sounded like it was made on someone’s at-home Casio keyboard or was lifted from some intense, action-packed video game, the movie came off as just plain silly. The film stars Sean Nateghi, Joseph Martinez, and Jay Habre as the three friends who apparently aren’t as close as we’re supposed to think since — spoiler alert — their friendship begins to deteriorate almost immediately after discovering the murdered girl in their trunk. I would say the film also stars this little kid that had nothing to do with the plot but whose scenes always went on excruciatingly long for some reason. The only good acting came from Constance Brenneman’s Robin character (Eagle’s girlfriend), who played her part as someone perpetually confused by their weird behavior. With this premise though, I’m sure that didn’t take much method-acting to pull off as, again, the story was silly, and I too was confused by their weird behavior even though I knew about the dead body! And when I say that this movie is silly, I don’t mean in a comedic way, unfortunately. 

For far too long, the film indulges in following each character into their daily lives in order to give unnecessary background and interactions instead of focusing on moving the plot forward. Too many times does the conversation between characters meander on, and unnaturally so, adding nothing to the plot or their character development. Too many times did I ask myself ‘how could NOBODY not be smelling that days-old rotting body by now’??? This movie may have been a better watch had there been more time spent on the mystery of the body’s appearance, or even the mystery behind who left it there. Actually, it may have been better if it had done a complete 180 and gone horror-comedy, something like a neo-Weekend At Bernie‘s; then I would have been laughing with the film, not at it. But no, I had to sit through this movie that was a drag all the way through and nowhere near being the thriller I was expecting from this premise. There’s no suspense in this movie whatsoever, I mean they even get stopped by the police at one point with the body still in the trunk and yet the scene builds no tension and fizzles out, leaving me asking myself what was that even for? What was this movie even for?!

Kyle Schadt’s Silent Panic was certainly not silent with all of the blaring music interruptions, and though there was indeed panic from each character, that feverish anxiety I was looking for was lost in the mix of unintended silliness. If some scenes were shorter, the accidentally comedic parts could have been avoided; with further editing, this may have been a good movie. But don’t let me stop you if you have 90 minutes to kill! Silent Panic was released to theaters earlier this month, and if not available nearby you can find it on Amazon.