Director: Vincent Paronnaud
Year: 2020
Country: Belgium/France/Ireland
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Plot:
Going out for a drink at a nightclub, a chance encounter causes a woman to go home with her beau only to awake the next day in the local woods bound with her former love-interest hunting her through the wilderness, forcing her into a deadly fight for survival against her ruthless abductors.
Review:
There was quite a lot to like with this thriller effort. Among the better features here is the strong and brutal manner in which this goes about playing around with its old-school grindhouse exploits. From the relentless chasing in the second half where it subtly manages to work around the concept of a supernatural entity at play in the forest offers a form of fairy-tale link between Mother Nature and women against the destructive nature of man chasing after her, this allegory helps fuel the action found throughout here. Bringing together the brutality against her early on where the manner of bringing her into contact with the two and how she gets caught in their game as well as the wholesale charge into the finale where she fights back with a ferocity that’s somewhat uncharacteristic from what’s shown before, the parallel is quite prominent and comes to the forefront in a fine way so it’s not just about the thrilling action found in the chase as she fights to get herself free of the situation.
However, for as much as the film works with the fairy-tale connection into the exploits on-screen it stumbles slightly with the need for including them in the first place. Since she’s simply just trying to get away from the guys for the majority of the film, she’s incredibly passive in regards to fighting back which makes for a weird transition as it comes out of nowhere once they reach a stage in the chase. There are hints it’ll get there but it doesn’t happen organically, resulting mainly from the propensity to delve into the over-the-top action required to sell it but that does stand out in the film. Moreover, the simple fact of trying to tie everything into a parable as such that it’s trying to here, namely that men are vicious animals and women are fierce warriors capable of protecting themselves from such men, is nothing that new and isn’t that creative since nothing especially creative is done with this assessment. However, there’s no real change to the film with this factor.
Overview: ****/5
Despite some minor issues of some over-familiarity in the setup and general execution, there's plenty to like here with the rest of this one that it manages to become one of the better entries in this style. Give it a look if you're a fan of these kinds of suspenseful horror/thrillers or curious about this one through its reputation, while those who aren't interested in the style or setup should heed caution.
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