Another day, another random supernatural horror film found in the back end of Tubi. And…on the one hand, I wasnt particularly OFFENDED by the presence of this movie…But as the credits rolled, I was just kind of left with the kind of hollow feeling that you can only really TRUELY get from a film that comes to the table with nothing, says nothing and leaves with nothing.
In essence, this is a supernatural/paranormal haunted house movie. Its non linear and opens with a cop exploring an abandoned home where, in 1988 a suspected ‘cult’ ritual killing happend in which only one woman managed to survive, while 4 people died. Now, a group of ‘paranormal documentarians’ are taking a man named John who’s partner Michelle is part of this group back to the house, as Johns been having visions of the house and is reluctantly hopeful in finding some answers.
From here, the film jumps back and forth between John being interviewed by a criminal psychologist, the police trying to piece together the case on the ground, and flashbacks to our group setting up for a seance, while spooky shenanigans occur. And, if you do intend to watch this movie, I wont spoil much here…Other than to issue a PSA to all upcoming writers and script editors…Please. I beg you, if your going to do an ‘unreliable narrator’ storyline, make it clear that the unreliable narrator is unreliable up front. I do NOT want to get 70 minutes into an 88 minute movie to ONLY THEN find out that the vast majority of what ive seen or been told so far may or may not be true, and that everything from that point to the credits may be false also.
This film isnt great, but I was rooting for it for the most part because, while it wasnt the best made film i’ve ever seen, it had fun ish moments and there were some half decent twists and turns. But the ‘unreliable narrator’ trope being dropped on this film around the start of the 3rd act with no warm up whatsoever felt like the scriptwriters and directors were trying to be clever…and instead poured cold water on the whole production because, you’ve just essentially told me the car I bought was made of construction paper…and your expecting me to clap. No.
Across the board this films just average. The scripts plot, for a haunted house movie? hits most of the tropes common with late 2000’s and early 2010s paranormal horror. You’d think the found footage element would pep the film up a bit, but it doesnt, because they dont really try anything new here, literally everything in this film is cliche tropes from Haunted house/paranormal movies of the last 25 years combined with plot tropes you quite literally can set your watch to. Throughout this whole film, I kept being reminded of ‘Deadstream’ not in a fond way…in a ‘Id rather be watching ‘Deadstream’ kind of way.
I think the biggest problem is how the film chooses to spend its time really, clocking in at 82 minutes, the film feels bizarrely rushed, especially in the back end, when a lot of the plotting is reliant on audiences just…not really questioning anything. I feel like a lot of detail around the muders, the history of the house and the tension building are just…not present here at all, and the result is a film that instead focusses WAY too much on the lead in to the house exploration, and the gang setting up tech…and nowhere NEAR enough time making me actually give a damn about the circumstances.
All the characters are generic horror stock cliches, again the script isnt trying anything new, the ‘revelations’ that turn up are kind of unremarkable in the year of our lord 2015. again, they arnt BAD perse…they’re just totally middle of the road and didnt really do much for me.
Same goes with the direction and cine. Non of its particularly bad, but it feels trapped somewhere between a studio films polish, and an indie films ‘rough and ready’ vibes. Theres decent CGI across the runtime, but theres almost no risks taken here. The creative vision for this piece is seemingly ‘My horror DVD Stack 2006-2014’ and thats about it. Theres nothing attempted here that hasnt been done a hundred times over in better and bolder productions.
The cines washed out, murky and sludgey. shots are well composed, but again, theres nothing here to put me on the edge of my seat, nothing to make me take notice and nothing to really create a sense of suspense. Its just…by the numbers in a very unremarkable way, even the sequence buildings overly safe and remeniscent of films 10 years its senior…its kind of wild really.
The performances are all pretty mixed to passable, noone goofs, but the absolute best performances here, are just kind of half decent. they dont really work a good emotional range, they dont come across as naturalistic, the dialogue seems ill fitting to them and the physical acting isa mixed bag of ‘good’ to ‘static’…and thats kind of a problem.
Throw in an ultra generic score and large swathes of the film where the dialogue track is mixed too low, meaning subtitles had to be used. And the end result is a film that aimed low, landed in mediocre and lost a HUGE chunk of goodwill from me with a plot twist that landed like a Squit in the paddling pool. One I could see being an easier riffer with beer and good company, ABSOLUTELY NOT one to seek out, and certainly not worth going out of your way for…
TYTD Reviews 