Starring Karen Fukuhara, Christine Woods and Miyavi

Directed by Joe Sill

Prime Video

A body is found, impossibly scorched, impossibly old. Murph (Christine Woods) is the homicide detective given the case. Nori (Karan Fukuhara) is the victim’s daughter who bonds with the investigating officer. Something is stalking them both. Something older than they can imagine.

I am an absolute mark for small scale, small cast, small budget big idea genre movies and Prime is a treasure trove of them right now. This 2019 offering is a prime example, and director Joe Sill and cinematographer Greg Cotten continually get a lot out of the budget. The initial body discovery is strikingly beautiful and deeply unsettling, and it sets a tone the movie’s best moments all build on. The ending does something similar, and the movie does a great job of using some very specific special effects in some character driven ways.

The cast impress too. Karen Fukuhara is always great and her natural presence helps immensely here. Nori is a victim until she isn’t, and Fukuhara plays the emotional journey of her discovering who she really is and what’s happening very well. She also has great chemistry with Christine Woods and the movie’s best moments are these strong, wounded women helping each other along. Woods is quietly revelatory here, and the film dives into Murph as a stereotype and shows us why she’s like this with subtlety and compassion. The final shot is great, emphasizing the journey the women have been on and it’s subtle, gentle storytelling that really lands the movie.

There are problems. The pacing feels a little off at times and the mystery is so great that the reveal is inevitably a little flat. But even then the personal nature of the story and the two great lead roles carry it over the line, as does a strong supporting cast.

Verdict: Unfairly buried by the algorithm, Stray is a careful, subtle, odd mystery that deserves solving. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart