''Salvage'' is a 2006

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

by the Crook Brothers, Jeffrey Crook and Joshua Crook. It was an official selection of the 2006

Sundance Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acte ...

. According to the directors' commentary, the film was shot for around $200,000. It stars Lauren Currie Lewis as Claire Parker, Cody Darbe as her boyfriend Jimmy, and Chris Ferry as Duke Desmond.

Plot

Claire is ending her

night shift The shift plan, rota or roster (esp. British) is the central component of a schedule (workplace), shift schedule in shift work. The schedule includes considerations of shift overlap, shift change times and alignment with the clock, vacation, train ...

at a

convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, bakkal, bodega, corner store, corner shop, superette or mini-mart is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lotter ...

. She expects her boyfriend to arrive to drive her home, but instead, someone else, who identifies himself as Duke, is driving her boyfriend's truck. After an unsettling ride home during which Duke makes increasingly overt sexual comments about her, Claire closes herself into the safety of her house. Duke appears at her door, claiming she has dropped an earring. Claire refuses to let him in, and he drops the earring on her front porch and leaves. Claire spends several moments crouched in the doorway retrieving the earring, but upon retrieving it and pulling the door closed, her back door has swung open. Duke has entered the house from the rear. He brutally murders her. Claire awakens at the convenience store again, and all seems well. She decides that she has had a

nightmare A nightmare, also known as a bad dream, Retrieved 11 July 2016. is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong emotional response from the mind, typically fear but also despair, anxiety, disgust or sadness. The dream may contain situations o ...

. As her shift ends, her boyfriend arrives, and she goes home and to school. However, unsettling hints begin to appear. The sequence of events once again leads to a moment where Claire is murdered, and she again awakens in the convenience store. As each sequence leads towards her death, she hears from time to time people who she trusts talking just out of earshot about how she is "catching on". Finally, she comprehends the clues: she realizes that not only has Duke been killed by the local police, but also that she is missing and presumed dead, as is her boyfriend Jimmy. In the end, it is revealed that Duke Desmond's soul has been occupying Claire's physical body the entire time and he is in Hell reliving his brutal murder of Claire over and over again as eternal punishment. Just before the end credits, "Claire" again awakens in the convenience store.

Cast

Music

Composer

Evan Wilson Evan is a Welsh masculine given name, derived from ''Iefan'', a Welsh form of the name John. Similar names that share this origin include Euan, Ivan, Ian, and Juan. "John" itself is derived from the ancient Hebrew name (romanised: Yəhôḥān ...

provided the original score for the movie. Additional music is provided by

Devola Devola is a census-designated place (CDP) in Washington County, Ohio, United States, along the Muskingum River. It is part of the Parkersburg- Marietta-Vienna, WV-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,639 at the 2020 census. ...

, a group from the Ohio area (themselves named after a geographic location) where the film was shot.

Production

According to the directors' commentary, the film was shot entirely with digital video, accounting for the greatly reduced budget of the film. Additionally, the credits reveal that the cast served many "crew" roles, with Lauren Lewis responsible for hair and makeup. There has been no apparent theatrical release of the film, but it is available in

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

release.

Home media

Released on DVD as ''Gruesome'' in Australia and in the UK.

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film has an approval rating of 29% based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Salvage (Film) 2006 films 2006 horror films American independent films American slasher films Films set in Ohio Films shot in West Virginia Supernatural slasher films Time loop films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films English-language horror films 2000s films about time travel