Director: Sylas Dall
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Moving to a new town with her family, a teen trying to get over the death of her older brother finds that her blindsided purchase of a strange tape-player accidentally unleashes a swarm of supernatural activity throughout the town, and upon learning of everything being related to her tries to save herself and friends from the threat.
Review:
Thus was a pretty decent if somewhat flawed kid-friendly effort. Among it’s better elements present is the highly enjoyable setup that manages to evoke a fun family-friendly atmosphere in an appropriate manner. The opening with the focus on her decidedly un-feminine attributes clashing with the family creates quite a lot to like here, with the setup slowly heading into a grand adventure later on where those skills are shown to come in handy combating the deadly forces at work around them. Added together with the fun relationship between everyone that makes the group of kids a blast to be around while they’re going off around town is all enough to bring about a generally engaging first-half to the film.
As well, there’s enough to like with the fun and enjoyable horror elements that are slowly introduced. Although it starts with her having the hallucinations and visions of people not being there starts as a nice note, the build-up to taking over the town with the unseen forces attacking the others with the scenes in the police station taking out the deputies, the attack on the deputies at her house or the terrifying encounter at the priests’ house as they try to figure out a combat strategy offers up some enjoyable and fun action-packed encounters with these shadowy beings that are kept to the shadows. The fun finale and intriguing manner of defeating everything is quite enjoyable with some solid practical gore and a heartwarming ending that gives this one plenty to like.
There are some issues to be had here. One of the biggest flaws is the seemingly random storyline throughout this one where the seeming paranormal activity is never properly built up resulting in a grossly exaggerated overview. The discovery of the mother’s antics around the house that signal everything starting is washed aside by her backing out the room and then with no evidence possible later on arrest the father on murder charges without announcing they’re dead or realizing there was no way since he just returned from work. The seemingly random attacks around town playing out around this have little context to work with and just feels wholly driven by conjecture based on everything that occurs since there’s little about what the demon actually wants until it’s way too late to do anything about it.
The other issue isn’t as bad but does have some issues here in the scenes attempting to mash together the horror and comedy aren’t that well integrated. A lot of the kids’ antics are genuinely fun yet the times where it descends into outlandish gags merely for the sake of comedy it feels incredibly cringey like trying to figure out if they’re an imposter or sarcastically explaining things they should know. On top of that, the efforts of the bumbling cops fighting over their equipment, the two deputies stationed at their house in general or the idea of treating the deaths as jokes tend to be quite off-putting. However, this isn’t that detrimental and doesn’t hold it back too much.
Overview: ****/5
Far more fun than it really should be as the mix of child-friendly adventure with an actual threat manages to be quite a lot of fun even with some sketchy comedy that is quite hit-or-miss, this one ends up being quite enjoyable overall. Give it a look if you’re a fan of these kinds of genre efforts or looking for something in this kind of realm, while those who don’t appreciate or enjoy these efforts should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment