‘Lars Shrike Walks the Night’

Somewhere in a distant galaxy… the protagonist of what looks like a 1970s era science fiction film wanders around the empty desert of a prison planet. He is desperate to escape but, suffering from amnesia, he must first work out who he is. Is he the product of a failed space experiment, a clone, or something worse?

Lars Shrike Walks the Night is Stranger Than Fiction meets K-PAX. The story explores the strange relationship between writers’ and their characters. The film examines reality, identity, and existence.

There are echoes of Vanilla Sky, The Truman Show, Fight Club, Total Recall and Shutter Island. All these stories ask the same two questions. Who am I? What is real?

So, who is Lars Shrike?

Kelsey Grammer plays Lars Shrike in this low budget science fiction film written and directed by Gary Walkow. I was expecting a classic redemptive story – a homeless amnesiac rediscovers his previous life. But, Lars Shrike Walks the Night takes a slightly different angle and does it with subversive humour.