Director: Henrique Couto
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Haunting Inside
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Trapped inside her house, an agoraphobic young woman and her brother try to follow through on concentration exercises with a set of games including an ouija board, and after playing with it she comes to find several imaginary friends that start playing a deadly game with her that put them in jeopardy.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty solid indie effort. The majority of the fun with this one comes from the endearing setup at play that focuses on the main characters’ plight and struggle. With her lovable, goofball energy that manages to mix together child-like innocence, a willingness to help herself but simply frustrated at the situation and stuck at home, it’s incredibly sympathetic to get to know her during this stage where the introduction to the lifestyle being stuck with board games and terrible home-cooked meals. The fact that the ouija board comes into play through random happenstance and the slowly-dissolving mental state she goes under after playing it really goes to spark a change in behavior towards the second half that’s fun to watch.
That change in behavior here after contacting the spirits through the ouija board manages to spring forth the real fun of this one as the varying personalities of the spirits begin to influence her. From the little girl that helps fuel her playful innocent side, the doo-wop father that helps her focus through cooking and the rebellious teenager that tends to bring about her take-charge attitude with how she starts taking out those that are trying to prevent her from interacting with the ghosts. This is all expected and quite obvious with how it plays out but that doesn’t stop the fun of how her deteriorating mental state gets dropped from the rational to psychotic as she tries to fight their influence once the dark game they want to play with her starts to take shape. These here are what hold this one up for the most part.
This one does have a few minor problems. The fact that this one spends so much time going through the motions of her mental state that this one can feel like it’s a bit slow-going at the beginning. Seeing the same thing over-and-over in regards to her flighty and scatterbrained child-like mindset through jumping to different interests or interests around the house hammers home the point rather quickly, and while this is all perfectly in tune with getting to know her and sympathize with there’s the issue of it taking a little too long to get going into the horror-based elements with these scenes taking up nearly two-thirds of the running time before it starts to become more genre-related.
The other minor flaw here is the rather underwhelming finale that seems to be quite confusing. The fact that they seem to have everything in place only to have the turn-around occurs with a sudden change of heart that comes out of nowhere and doesn’t have any real build-up offered as for why she changes. Rather than slowly come to the realization that they’ve been fooling her which would’ve been a more rational response, she seemingly and without any motivation from previous events decides to turn it into a more uplifting finale with the events that occur here which feels quite sudden and unnatural. As well as the telltale signs of the low-budget here that some might have an issue with but isn’t detrimental all that much anyway, these here are what hold this one back overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
Featuring plenty of likable aspects here and nothing all that terribly detrimental, this one is an endearing and somewhat enjoyable effort that doesn’t have too much weighing it down although it does have those elements present. Give this a shot if you’re a fan of this style of low-budget indie effort or looking for a fun, quick genre film, while those that don’t appreciate that style should heed caution here.
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