Director: Daniel Armstrong
Year: 2020
Country: Australia
Alternate Titles: Tarnation
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Following a horrendous personal day, a woman agrees to join her friends for a camping vacation at a secluded cabin in the woods, but when it turns out to be a ploy by a demonic cult to possess her friends to get access to her she has to fight off the creatures to get away.
Review:
This one ended up being a decent if slightly flawed effort. When this one works is due to the wholly engaging setup of getting everything together for the experiences at the cabin. Starting off with her bad luck of performing for an awful band which fires her for saying that and returning home to her boyfriend leaving her and her best friend being unsupportive, the whole setup for the trip and what it means for her is all laid out quite nicely. As well, with the few flashes of the demonic entities of the cabin offering some fine foreshadowing of the major events to come and a couple chilling visions anyway, this setup in concept works quite well to give this a great reason for the group to take the trip. The few hints of comedy about her awkwardness in their company is a nice help to things.
That leads to the rather fun and somewhat chilling action that occurs at the cabin. Starting almost immediately with the signs that something's wrong by the changing picture in the living room, the series of tactics used to possess each of the friends by having spiders attack the screwing couple or the parasite swimming up the one in the bath manage to give a great indication of where this is going as the possessed launch some ingenious attacks to get at her. Utilizing the severed head to the various possessed animals they have to battle and the big confrontation with the final demons which are goofy, silly and wholly enjoyable, this one has a lot to like in the final half. Combined with a lot of impressive cheesy practical effects for the monsters and gore, these all make for a fun time with this one.
There are some issues to be had with this one. The major flaw found here is the wholly messy and underwhelming story that tends to play by its own rules whenever it wants to, resulting in some confusing efforts here. By going for the anyone can be possessed at any time route and not making any rules about what the possessed can do, what happens to them while possessed or how their attacks have a central purpose, there's no main throughline as to how the behavior affected by the possession works resulting in a wholly discordant feeling. Likewise, you also have to deal with a multitude of budgetary issues, from unimpressive CGI inserts, lackluster fight choreography and a single-location setup which all manage to make it obvious for some about this kind of film. Overall, these are what manage to hold it back the most.
Overview: **/5
An enjoyable enough if still somewhat problematic effort that does have some issues with it, it comes off nicely enough at times where it serves as a wholly watchable if nonessential film for the most part. Give it a look if you're into these kinds of indie efforts or appreciate low-budget films while most others won't find much to like here over the flaws.
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