Director: Cameron McGowan
Year: 2019
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Moving into a new neighborhood, a woman and her kids wake up to receive strange letters informing them that they’ve been instructed to kill a random person in the neighborhood who will also try to kill them, and once they realize it isn’t a joke tries to keep them and herself safe from the other neighbors out on their missions.
Review:
This was an incredibly enjoyable effort. One of the best features with this one is the whole setup of what’s going on as this is a wholly believable and realistic outcome that might happen. The fact that this taps so well into the paranoia of the current modern landscape, not being able to trust your neighbors who you can’t tell if they’re taking the situation seriously or not is an incredibly modern situation. The fact that they get both sides of the spectrum, since the mother is supposed to go after the friend and actually visits her with no intention of following through but is eventually forced to do something when the husband misinterprets the situation allowing for the craziness to explode from there, all the while taking place while the kids are being stalked in their house by the neighbor. That ability of tapping into the modern-day mindset of the general public who are on-edge around each other and won’t need much of an excuse to descend into the kind of frenzy that’s portrayed here where a flimsy letter is all that’s needed to instigate it feels very true and realistic to where the madness portrayed here doesn’t feel very far off from actually occurring which is a fantastic touch.
The main gist of the film, though, is the wholly enjoyable and brutal confrontations that are built up from the film’s setup. The relentless pacing here starts off immediately with the strange guy getting blown away by the neighbor on his doorstep gets this off to a great start and drops you into this one quite easily, especially with the daily routine of their lives featuring the incident playing out behind them without interrupting the flow of the film. There’s a lot to like with the tension in the rest of the encounters, from the escalated confrontation at her friend’s house to the son being confronted by the neighbor who’s hunting him which has some great tension and gore involved all setting up the fantastic finale where it comes together in a really fun series of confrontations that take place down in the basement of the boyfriends’ house which wraps everything together in a fine series of brutal action and dynamic meta storytelling about the nature of the outbreak. Given that all of this provides a breakneck pace and some fantastic indie-flavored gore for the kills not only from the group protecting themselves but also on the various cut away to the other people taking out the instructions for the day, there’s quite a lot of positive elements that work well here.
There isn’t much to dislike with the film. One of the main flaws is the film’s inability to explain what’s going on. The idea of sending the community off into a frenzy of slaughter simply because of a series of red letters makes no sense as to why they would be compelled to do so, and with the rampant social media conversations going on about the incidents wouldn’t have brought more of an authoritative presence to the situation. This feels incredibly sloppy and lazy as a motive to go about showcasing this premise but that’s about it as there’s nothing else here beyond the flimsy pretext. This would’ve worked far better had it given a reasoning what the purpose of choosing the day was like, why using letters to start the rampage which is an outdated delivery system overall and there’s nothing about repercussions if no one did anything as everything is based on the idea of believing that the public would react to the situation. There’s only one video that says what’s going on and it’s something that does stand out, much like the weird story of them helping the injured deer which gives great character context but seems like odd time filler that didn’t need it. Overall, though, these are the only minor issues to be had with the film.
Overview: ****/5
While it doesn’t handle its intriguing premise as well as it could’ve, there’s still quite a lot of impressive work elsewhere here with the modern-day themes and commentary that makes up enough to hold this one up. Give this one a chance if you’re interested in the style or looking for a fun, breezy piece of social commentary, while those not looking for that in their films should heed caution.
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