Shudder Saturday: Fingers (2019)

Part crime thriller, part dark comedy, Fingers is a real little gem of a film that is surprisingly unsettling in between the moments that may make you laugh.

Sabina Friedman-Seitz plays Amanda, a woman who is irrationally freaked out by certain triggers. It could be a birthmark. It could be a short, black man. So her anxiety starts to go through the roof when a colleague, Walter (Stan Madray), comes into work missing a finger. It only gets worse when he starts missing more, prompting Amanda to seek help from Dr. Scotty (Michael Richardson). Walter claims that he has just been clumsy while trying DIY at home, but soon confesses that men are coming to take his fingers, one at a time. He doesn't know why. Dr. Scotty thinks he has made up a wild story, but it's even wilder because it's true.

I decided to give Fingers a watch because I saw that Jeremy Gardner was in the cast. I've become a firm fan of Gardner and he's built up a solid body of work, with both his direction and his acting turns, in genre fare that tends to have some additional quirkiness, and often no small amount of subversion. This film, as you may have guessed, falls firmly into the same category.

Writer-director Juan Ortiz does a fantastic job, even more so when you think that this is only his second directorial feature, and his dark and witty script is helped by some astute casting. There are moments here that are deeply disturbing, but Ortiz knows what to show, and what to imply (a line that is essential to keep viewers on board when, at one point, a dog is put in peril). And the mannered way in which most of his main characters communicate with one another reminded me of the films of Yorgos Lanthimos. Which is no bad thing.

Friedman-Seitz has fun in her role, although it's interesting that she's a lead character who becomes secondary to others involved in the finger-severing madness for most of the runtime. The same can be said of Madray, who suffers through a very painful and bewildering situation almost daily. Gardner is, in many ways, the main person we stick with, which is an unexpected bonus. He often works with an accomplice (played by Sterling William), and the two are involved in scenes that constantly, and brilliantly, teeter in between surreal hilarity and dark horror. Michael St. Michaels plays Fox, a crime boss who has hired Gardner to get this unpleasant job done, and he also has some fun. In fact, everyone does. Except Madray, but at least he gets a great punchline.

Although there are moments when you can sense the low budget and the limitations here, Fingers is an impressive piece of work. So impressive that I'll definitely hope to check out Ortiz's first film, and will look forward to whatever he does next. Especially if he decides to work with Gardner again.

8/10

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