Director: Kelton Jones
Year: 2019
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Trying to quit a drug habit, a man goes up to a friends’ mountain cabin to help quit, but when his hallucinations and visions begin to mess with his mind he becomes unable to distinguish fantasy from reality and turns to increasingly desperate maneuvers to stop them from happening.
Review:
This one wasn’t too bad but was pretty flawed. Among the bright spots here is the central premise providing an opportunity for plenty of fun. The idea of being at the cabin and attempting to come clean and still being so unsure of himself that the distorted view of the world causes supernatural visions and images he can’t control serves as a fine starting point. Those haunting scenes where the ghosts appear around the cabin are quite creepy, and the hallucinogenic battle with the deranged cop come off nicely overall as there’s some brutal action featured here. The finale, which shows the reveal of the ghosts and how they come to be as well as the twist about what’s already happened gives this a dark twist on top of a frenzied series of action scenes that are quite fun seeing the crazed side come out. Providing this with some great gore as well, these here are the film’s positive elements.
There were some flaws featured here. The main problem with this one is the agonizingly slow build in the first half which really takes a lot of energy from the film. As this goes through the tricks and tribulations of his getting to the cabin, going for supplies and settling in at the house, the pacing to this one feels rather dragged out here to stretch out an unsuitable feature-length premise to an appropriate running time as we focus on him solely for long stretches of this segment. Most of this isn’t interesting as it comes off heavily favored in that regard, and while the few interactions with the locals including the suspicious police officer do manage to interject some activity into the film they tend to fall flat after a while due to the repetitive nature of many of these scenes being here to pad out the running length.
The other main issue here is the general lack of horror activity featured here. The haunting scenes with the ghosts running around the cabin that only he can see happen so frequently that they rarely generate any kind of shock when they happen since they come out of nowhere in a story that forgets to include any kind of mention about them. Even the other intended scenes trying to show he’s losing grip with reality have no impact because they’re not that scary in concept or execution, and with so much of these scenes given no sense of urgency or immediacy as her blank-faced reaction to his genuine freakouts manage to render most of these scenes as if they’re not intended to scare. The last problematic issue is the finale, where it repeats everything to the point where it’s hard to tell what it meant or what was supposed to be the purpose of it all, making for the film’s lowered qualities.
Overview: **/5
While the premise works nicely and has some intriguing elements at work, on the whole, the boredom and confusion are too much to overcome here and cause this to slip down quite heavily. This one is more for indie genre fans or those who prefer this kind of effort, while those who are turned off should heed caution.
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