Vera Miao’s ‘Rock Springs’ starts off familiar to a fault but builds towards a touching and truly frighteningly finale. Our Sundance review.
Exhuma was one of my favorite movies of 2024, largely because of how brazen its midpoint shift in tone was. That was a monster movie operating within the earnest context of real, devastating environmental and generational trauma. Rock Springs, filmmaker Vera Miao’s feature debut, which premiered at this year’s Sundance International Film Festival, parallels Jang Jae-hyun’s masterful Exhuma, largely to its credit. Throw in a dollop of The Substance (you’ll see), and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how Rock Springs finds its groove in a crowded genre space.
Rock Springs certainly feels familiar at the start. Gracie (Aria Kim) has been rendered nonverbal following the death of her father. Her mother, Emily (Kelly Marie Tran), uproots Gracie and her mother-in-law (Fiona Fu) and absconds to rural Wyoming for a fresh start, or, in Emily’s own words, the only option available. Finding teaching work as a cellist is tough.
There are portents of doom in the gaseous, surreal depictions of the wilderness and the house, in the camera pans down to the stirring rot beneath the dirt. Is it supernatural? Perhaps, as Gracie hears odd noises, stares at unseen things in the distance, and develops an unusual attachment to a scary doll kids would never like frontrunner. Emily, more aware, grapples with burgeoning racism from neighbors, and while it works in solidifying the isolation the family will no doubt face, it’s roughly scripted, where everyone speaks exclusively with a xenophobic cadence. I don’t doubt it happens, but the literal bluntness is at odds with the quiet solitude and patience of the horror undercurrent.
Rock Springs isn’t at its strongest during this opening beat. It’s too Blumhouse, too frustratingly vague in the terrors it intends to evoke. Broad gestures toward something being not quite right without the necessary depth of character or setting to resonate. It was a surprise, then, when Rock Springs pivoted to its second chapter—complete with the requisite title card—and radically recontextualized what the movie would be.
Here, with star Benedict Wong, the horror is all too real– think Killers of the Flower Moon raw, and The Nightingale upsetting. It’s visceral, extremely violent, and similarly culled from real history, rendering the dramatization all the more potent. Here, Miao really comes into her own. It’s a propulsive second chapter, paying off the patience of the opening while simultaneously nudging Rock Springs into an entirely different horror subgenre—gnarly, nasty, yet meaningful and intentional creature feature.
I won’t say more, since half the fun is seeing for yourself, but the shift injects considerable life—and resonance—into Rock Springs’ horror. Now, it never meshes quite as well as its peers, and at times, the growing silliness undercuts the austerity of its real-world tragedy. Luckily, Miao pulls it all together at the end, and Rock Springs lands as a poignant—dare I say tearjerking—horror ode to diaspora, lost homes, and ghosts suspended in time.
Rock Springs may not be a wholly accomplished debut, but it does signal Vera Miao as a filmmaker to watch. It’s a hodgepodge of subgenres with a real tragedy at its core, and while it struggles to exceed the sum of its parts, some of those parts sure are something. Rock Springs may not rock your world, but its commitment to Miao’s vision is stirring enough to make it one of the better horror movies out of this year’s festival. It may not have all the buzz, but in a few years, I suspect we’ll all be looking back to see where Miao first got going. Come for the supernatural jitters, stay for the big, monstrous heart.
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