"Silent Panic" falls into the "one bad decision" school of filmmaking, where regular people make a single choice that inevitably leads to a cascade of unintended consequences. Hitchcock used the ploy along with plenty of others in the thriller, mystery or horror genres.
The idea is to get the audience caught up in the feeling that they could be stuck in the same situation, and empathize with the characters' existential turmoil.
Writer/director Kyle Schadt has a nice feel for the camera. He knows how to shoot the cast in indirect ways so we feel like we're moving alongside them rather than just observing them.
The plotting is not as accomplished, nor is the acting. This has the feel but not the look of what it is: a low-budget semi-pro effort made by folks who are feature film first-timers or otherwise trying to break into the biz. It's pretty typical of the fare you see at regional film festivals.
Here the setup is that free friends from Los Angeles are out camping and return to their car to find a dead woman's body in the truck. It's not exlplained how it got there, which is OK because the body is a classic MacGuffin -- a thing that's not important in of itself except insomuch as how it propels the way people react to it.
This seemingly would be an easy choice: call the cops and let them deal with it. But Eagle (Sean Nateghi) served a prison stint for a crime he did not commit, so he insists they not take a chance on being blamed for the murder.
Dom (Jay Habre) is the sensible one of the trio, a writer who also acts as the film's (occasional) narrator. He's the one who points out if they touch the body to move it out of the trunk to leave behind, they'll inevitably get their DNA on it. Bobby (Joseph Martinez) is the nervous nelly who just wants the problem to go away.
So they drive back to town and think about ways to get rid of the body. Eagle tries leaving the keys in the car in hopes it'll get stolen, but L.A. disappoints him by finding no willing thieves. Things go from there.
They're also dealing with the women in their lives, trying to keep a lid on the situation without tipping them off. Eagle's girlfriend, Robin (Constance Brenneman), is the sharpest of the bunch who's put off by his strange behavior and string of lame excuses.
Dom has just started a relationship with Sharon (Juliet Frew) and doesn't want to do anything to screw it up. Bobby, who's divorced and a reformed drug addict, has to juggle being a single parent to his small son while dealing with his mother (Helene Udy) and his lack of unemployment.
The pressure keeps ratcheting, and we know somebody's going to crack.
I liked the musical score by Field Observations -- not sure if that's a person or a company -- which is mostly a bunch of creeping, atonal snips of electronica. It edges just enough into the film to comment upon the dilemma without invading too much.
"Silent Panic" has some good instincts for storytelling but isn't always very skilled at executing them. The movie has too many pregnant pauses and not enough building of tension in between them.