In the empty landscapes of rural Washington, a meeting is about to go down between two people: Abe (Conner Marx), a young journalist trying to make a name for himself, and Debra (Carol Roscoe), who works for the US government. Their meeting is the result of a series of back and forth communications, with Debra wanting to release sensitive information involving national security. From the moment they meet in person, the word “trust” gets thrown around more than once. For Abe, it’s making sure Debra’s a legitimate source while trying to stop her from being spooked so easily; for Debra, it’s a matter of not getting caught handing out classified information. They may be surrounded by vast flatlands, but their location exposes them just as much as it exposes anyone who might be watching them. Over the next hour and a half (shown almost entirely in real-time), Abe and Debra will try to trust each other in order to get what they want. On the other hand, viewers can place their full trust in writer/director Nathan Williams’ hands. If There’s a Hell Below is the kind of back to basics take on a conspiracy thriller that feels refreshing and riveting at the same time, with a confidence behind the camera that establishes a new name brimming with potential. Here’s a film where the word “Hitchcockian” is not just apt; it’s earned.

For its slim runtime, Williams goes against expectations by making as much empty space as possible. When it comes to story, it’s not about the specifics of why Abe and Debra get together. Her specific role in the government is never expanded on beyond a meaningless job title, and the information she has for Abe doesn’t get explained or broken down (all she has is a list of names on a flash drive). Williams’ deliberate avoidance of specifics helps make the situation easier to get pulled into, as it gives him the ability to hone in on the dramatic core: two people entering a possibly life or death situation, with no way of knowing they’re safe until they’re unsafe. Williams’ set-up doesn’t provide any evidence of Abe or Debra being who they say they are, and no knowledge of whether or not they’re being watched. They meet in the open countryside with no one else around them, but they act like they’re in an enclosed space with eyes all around them.

Initially, Abe and Debra’s characterizations come across as a little too familiar, with Abe’s ignorant cockiness making him look less like an opportunistic journalist and more like a victim in the first act of a slasher movie. But like everything else in Williams’ film, it’s a deliberate move. Abe turns out to be a small-time reporter desperately looking for a big break, and his behaviour comes from not realizing the stakes of the situation. Early on, when Debra gets scared once she sees a parked SUV in the distance, Abe decides to drive right up to the vehicle to show her she has nothing to worry about. It’s an annoying sequence until Williams throws in a nice punchline, one that’s predictable but pulled off with such aplomb it’s hard not to crack a smile.

The assured direction extends out to the film’s look, an aspect that’s vital to why If There’s a Hell Below works so effectively. Taking full advantage of the spacious locations, Williams and cinematographer Christopher Messina create one painterly image after another, at times evoking Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World but with a more sinister edge. It’s an impressive control over mood and atmosphere that heightens the intensity, especially in the latter half when the film closes on a terrific, wordless epilogue, a mini-narrative that drops just enough information for viewers to piece everything together. It’s that kind of cool, confident filmmaking that makes If There’s a Hell Below a highly entertaining shock to the system, a thriller that shows how a skillful hand can make all the difference between a good film and a great one.

First-time writer/director Paul Taylor wants you to know that Driftwood is, in his words, “a reaction to contemporary cinema.” Citing excessive exposition and the old adage of style over substance, Taylor intends to make a film that breaks things down to cinema’s purest form as a visual medium. What that translates to is, in a literal sense, nothing: Driftwood doesn’t have a single word of dialogue in it, strictly relying on actions to communicate themes and plot. It’s a bold move for Taylor or any new director, but it’s hard not to feel a little hesitant about the move given its origins. Could Taylor’s eschewing of dialogue be an opportunity to provide a breath of fresh air from more standard indie fare, or is it merely a reactionary gimmick whose purpose is to stand out for the sake of it? Driftwood luckily doesn’t fall into the latter category, with Taylor sincerely trying to break from the norm to explore different ways of keeping viewers engaged, even if his methods might have their own shortcomings.

Opening with the arresting image of a Woman (Joslyn Jensen) possibly suffering from some sort of amnesia wandering out of a beach, Driftwood cuts to a Man (Paul C. Kelly) taking the Woman back to his house. There’s no relation between them from the looks of it—he more or less found her on the beach and decided to take her home—and the Woman is so far gone she doesn’t even know how to go to the bathroom. Is she suffering from amnesia, or is this something supernatural or stranger? That’s left up to interpretation, but when the camera lingers on a shot of the Man touching his new “friend” a little too affectionately, there’s no need to guess his intentions with her.

Without dialogue, Driftwood’s narrative keeps things basic. What the film boils down to is the Woman trying to escape from the Man, as her growing independence is met with harsher treatment by her captor. An unwarranted trip outside prompts the Man to lock the Woman in her bedroom when he’s at work, and her successive acts of rebellion lead to stricter living conditions. The Man’s motives for his behaviour get an explanation from Taylor early on, a bit of development that highlights the benefits of Taylor’s approach. With all the emphasis on visuals and sound, there’s more room for Taylor’s themes to take centre stage.

Aside from the more ambiguous questions surrounding the set-up, Driftwood’s straightforward storyline also means there’s just a lot more room altogether, and that space starts getting felt as the plot becomes repetitive. Later in the film, the arrival of a Young Man (Michael Fentin) threatens to shake things up, except it plays out more or less as expected, eventually falling back into the routine established earlier. That’s not to say Driftwood is a stale film by any means, though. It’s an inherently active viewing experience, with Taylor’s cinematography and the two lead performances keeping things both dynamic and engaging. But with more attention paid to what’s on screen, the patterns and repetitions inevitably become more noticeable as well.

So while there’s plenty of room to chew on Driftwood’s ideas of loneliness, grief and trying to rebuild the past, the comparably lacking story means more attention winds up being paid on filling in the background information, theorizing on the origins of the Woman and how she wound up rising out of the beach like a newborn. Those mystery elements make Driftwood a fun curiosity and Taylor’s refusal to give context is more than welcome, but it can only take the film so far. Nonetheless, Taylor can easily rest his film on its own ambitions. Driftwood showcases the good and bad of making a dialogue-free film, but it also shows the kind of riskiness that more indies should attempt.

Following in the footsteps of Alex Ross Perry’s comedies and 2014 SXSW winner Fort Tilden (whose co-lead Clare McNulty shows up here in a small role), Robert Putka’s MAD deals almost exclusively with watching selfish, heinous people behave in selfish, heinous ways, with Putka setting his sights on a dysfunctional family and their bipolar mother. Mel (Maryann Plunkett) suffers a breakdown after her husband leaves her, winding up in the hospital when she’s found uncontrollably sobbing by her neighbours. Mel’s daughters Connie (Jennifer Lafleur), a successful corporate worker with a husband and two kids, and Casey (Eilis Cahill), unemployed and trying to figure out her life, convince her to commit herself to a psych ward in order to rehabilitate herself, a choice fueled more by selfishness than a sincere desire to help their mom.

Of course, being a family with its fair share of relationship issues, every interaction ends up devolving into a brutal war of words between mother and daughter(s). Putka, who also wrote the screenplay, knows how to write some great passive-aggressive barbs (when a dejected Mel tells Connie that her daughters hate her, Connie calmly responds with “Casey doesn’t hate you”), and his game cast do a great job making their arguments crackle until the acid-tongued screenplay gets the better of everyone. For the most part, Putka’s tonal balance between sweet and bitter works (largely because of Plunkett’s performance), but the constant repetition of Connie or other characters lashing out at one another takes its toll, eventually making scenes feel like Putka trying to constantly one-up his own insults. That makes MAD work against itself when it tries to humanize its three leads, resulting in a rocky ending when the film goes for an emotionally satisfying payoff. Fans of extremely caustic humour should get their fill with MAD, and while Putka’s attempt to find a middle ground between the sincere and cynical doesn’t entirely work (a hard task for anyone to accomplish, let alone a first feature), he shows enough wit to make MAD’s ambitions worthwhile.