Director: James Watts
Year: 2021
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Plot:
Wanting to get away for the weekend, a group of friends decides to have a special get-together at a remote cottage in the wilderness, but when they discover that someone has been brutally murdered they realize they’re being hunted by someone around them and must try to get away alive.
Review:
There were some rather troubling factors here alongside its positives. The main drawback is the wholly unnecessary overlong running time that goes on way too long for this kind of film. The early setup involving the lives of the group coming together and arriving at the house manages to be incredibly bland offering up nothing all that interesting as the group does nothing but play banal party games, drink or smoke while arguing over their past boyfriends or debate the merits of the story involving the neighbors’ who may or may not have killed his wife. None of this is interesting or thrilling, and when carried on for as long as it is in the running time here it really holds the horror elements back to a point that it’s entirely possible to forget this was supposed to be a genre effort in the first place.
This is certainly not helped along by the second half where it really shows off how bland and uninteresting the characters are. Focusing on the try-hard political correctness of their intentions instead of having fun or the utterly unnecessary stopover at a party hosted by a local stranger manages to highlight this factor even more with the dull and dreary work of everyone involved making it insanely difficult to care about anything and anyone involved. Taking on the additional disadvantage of being so bland is that these also contribute to the film’s overlong running time as not only do we grow to not care about anyone but it just makes the film a chore to get through before getting to anything remotely considered genre entertainment.
While it does have some problems later on, among the few things it does right is the actual switchover into the darker scenes when the dying body of their friend is found. It’s a genuinely terrifying scene with the confusion and general disorder of the scene where they discover the remains and try to make sense of everything happening, yet even that loses its power and meaning when the motivation for everything comes out rendering everything into a wholly unimpressive and lackluster scorned romance angle that doesn’t justify anything that’s come before or makes sense as to what the events leading up to that revelation. For the most part, these are what hold this one down.
Overview: */5
A slow-burn, overlong thriller that tends to overwhelm with the flaws against the positives, this one comes off quite weakly with a few likable elements that do get overlooked by the massive amounts of flaws that are present here. Give this a shot if you’re into this style of film or if any of the flaws aren’t undermining for you, while most others who find those issues troubling or problematic should heed absolute caution with this one.
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