PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Drones are the latest trend, and make for really fun toys, right? But does all that technology come at a price? This is the question posed in the new SyFy movie, Hover, directed by Matt Osterman (Ghost From the Machine 2010, 400 Days 2015). The film opens with a commercial for Vastgrow drones, which are the wave of the future in farming. They’re touted as a new, hands-free way to plant, monitor and defend your agricultural business from terrorists, attackers, and other threats.
Hover takes place in a future where cars drive themselves, doors are automatic, and humans are all too reliant on technical gadgets. Two Transitions compassionate care providers, Claudia (The Last Man On Earth’s Cleopatra Coleman, who also penned the script) and John (Craig “muMs the Schemer” Grant: Dark Water 2005), arrive at a farmhouse to assist a man with legal euthanasia. Afterwards, Claudia discovers that she is pregnant with a married man’s child, and John is murdered in his apartment by a drone.
Unaware that her partner’s death was murder, Claudia is promoted and sent back out into the field to continue helping others transition. The next farm she visits has a smashed up drone on its front porch. When she asks about it, the young man living in the house claims that the drone is the reason his father is ill, that they are evil and that many in the region are also sick because of them.
Later, she finds the young man who warned her about the drones dead, and mysterious cars following her. She finds assistance with an offbeat old woman named Joanna (Beth Grant: Donnie Darko 2001) and a determined mechanic named Isaiah (Shane Coffey: Pretty Little Liars TV series) to find the truth behind the rash of illnesses. What has Claudia stumbled upon in this strange, rural area? Has our reliance on technology gone too far?
Hover is a very thoughtful, well-crafted film that is more reliant on narrative than special effects. That does not, in any way, diminish the chilling nature of the film. With the patent systems currently used in farming, where farmers owns little more than the dirt, the technology presented in this film is not so far fetched. This is a very plausible future, and that makes it even more terrifying. [ad2]
