Director: David Fowler
Year: 2020
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Surviving a harrowing camping trip, a father and his daughter are taken in by a strange cult-like group and offer to take them in until they heal, but the more they stay there the more they come to believe something is wrong with the group and are forced to rely on a former cult member searching for a missing person to get them out.
Review:
This was quite a fun and creepy genre effort. One of its strongest aspects is the engrossing slow-burn build-up that offers quite a lot to like in regards to the activities conducted by the group and their true intentions. Taking the stereotypical route of the smiling, friendly-faced attractive group of people who are overly sweet, caring and nurturing that belie a hint of sinisterness behind their façade, the easy assumption of this potentially being an overly-friendly group of people with their actions is quite nice as the daughter is so easily swayed to stay so quickly that he begins to fear for her safety. That becomes quite sinister with their intentions and the ultimate reveal of what's going on at the compound with the multi-dimensional travel and over-the-top hallucinations they can bring about on other victims.
This fantastic build-up manages to make the rest of the film quite creepy and chilling as the series of hauntings and hallucinations become quite frightening and threatening. The attempts to bring the father into the cult manage to come off incredibly well, from the circular nightmare-inducing argument he has with the leader to the chasing around the woods by the other members trying to kill him. This brings out the enjoyable nature of their sinister plans as the series of mind-games that are played with not only those two but the later group searching for the missing woman in the cult which has a lot to like with the craziness of the situation getting progressively wilder as time goes on including the rather clever manner in which they bring everything down at the end. These here manage to give this enough to like that it holds up over its problematic areas.
There are some big issues with the film. The most obvious one is the complete lack of anything really resembling action throughout here, as the vast majority of the build-up is based around the metaphorical traps from the group towards the two. Trying to make sense of the various antics and the constant use of mannequins around the woods even for those who aren't a part of the group is where the focus lies, taking more of a science-fiction route rather than a more overt horror route. For those expecting weird rituals and other typical cult-like behavior, this series of alternate reality talk and mind-trip sequences will be a turn-off and make it seem duller than it really is especially with the overlong running time which is the other issue here. This runs a bit longer than it should for what it's trying to accomplish, going at a slightly slower tempo and running in circles repeating things that don't need to be said which all hold this back.
Overview: ***/5
While it offers a bit more impact on the science fiction aspects than outright horror, there's still more than enough genuine horror to make this a fun if slightly confusing genre effort. Give this a shot if you're a fan of this trippier genre fare or find it intriguing while those who prefer much more simplified efforts should heed caution.
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