A mother leaves Mementos for her daughter in Gazer trailer
The debut feature from Ryan J. Sloan hits theaters on February 21, 2025.
Image courtesy of Metrograph Pictures
“Focus. What do you see?” opens a voiceover in the trailer for Gazer, the directorial debut from Ryan J. Sloan. We see a promising clip of a new thriller, shot on 16 mm and bearing a bit of a resemblance to Christopher Nolan’s Memento.
The latter point is a comparison Gazer is leaning into, highlighting a quote from a critic who had the same observation in the back half of the trailer. The clip focuses on Frankie Rhodes (Ariella Mastroianni, who co-wrote the film), a young mother who witnesses some sort of crime through an apartment window. She’s also suffering from a degenerative cognitive disorder, so she records herself talking into cassettes, seemingly both to help her keep her own bearings and to leave for her daughter. Per a plot synopsis, “She takes a risky job from a mysterious woman with a dark past, which leads her to become entangled in a tense web of revenge, deceit, and murder.”
Gazer sounds like it was a labor of love to create. A press release emphasizes that it was shot on a “shoestring budget” on nights and weekends while Sloan worked as an electrician and Mastroianni as a film programmer over a two-year span. Drawing from the thrillers of the 1970s and 80s, Gazer certainly looks like the product of two film buffs. The film opens in theaters on February 21, 2025.