Director: Tommy Faircloth
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Heading out for a weekend getaway, a group of friends forced to stop at an abandoned, burned down church once they get stranded by a potential storm in the area where they realize the stories about the area being haunted by the spirit of a vengeful nun is true and must try to get away from the church alive.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable effort. Among the better aspects here are the early setups that give off a rather enjoyable old-school style setup for the main film to get the group trapped and get the film going. With the initial stop at the abandoned ruins and the backstory about the events that happened there in the past coinciding with the group getting locked out and forced to find shelter in the middle of the woods, there’s a fine atmospheric touch here that goes a long way to getting for a realistic manner of getting the group stranded in the area. As well with the backstory involving the nun’s grisly involvement with the church and a fantastically creepy abandoned area that this takes place in, this one manages to get the atmosphere and general set up right from the beginning.
From there, the film gets quite enjoyable with the various flashbacks and encounters showing the group not only confronting the nun but seeing the exploits in her past. The repeat of the early scenes with her as a child confronting the figure around her room which goes into greater detail on these scenes than before which helps to make for a bigger impression about the spirit, while creepiness of the location makes the flash appearances of the nun walking in the distance tormenting them somewhat chilling. The series of quick ambush-style kills for the various encounters that set up one of the greatest twist endings in the scene serve this one well with the way this turns everything around unexpectedly. Overall, these here make for a rather fun time.
This one does have a few issues. Among the more noticeable factors here is the absolutely lame cliche of the troublesome and antagonistic group that are supposedly family and friends spending nearly the entire time taking potshots and trading insults with each other. It’s tiresome and lazy to keep harping on the same series of overdone cliches about the bookwormish sister with freaky habits being made fun for those instead of more traditional interests like everyone else in the group who see that as reason enough to pick on her. It doesn’t speak to the fact that it’s a group that hangs out frequently with each other or even having the two sides agreeing to take the trip together in the first place if that keeps popping up in a film like this.
The other big issue here is the rather curious amount of time spent on the group doing absolutely nothing once they arrive at the church and decide to stay there. Not only is this filled with a lot of the arguing and insulting they do to each other but it also manages to keep the main nun off-screen for large portions of this time as they focus away from her targeting the group. Since the majority of the scenes are simply stating the legend or splitting the friends up to focus on their own individual issues, it seems like forever before the rampage starts and then rushes through with killing them in short order due to the constricted running time and how late into the film that all starts. That makes for enough to hold this one down somewhat.
Overview: ***/5
A fun and enjoyable genre effort with a few minor areas that do hold it back, this one is a pretty solid effort that serves itself quite well for those looking for a creepy, inoffensive genre effort. Give this a shot if you’re a fan of the creative crew, enjoy this type of supernatural genre effort or are curious about the film, while those turned off by the flaws or not into this style of films should heed caution.
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