Director: Steven Grayhm
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After his father’s death, a man returns to his old house to put the finishing touches on the property when he starts to experience a series of strange events that keep him up late into the night and start affecting his work, eventually discovering the cause to be a Native American curse attached to the land.
Review:
Overall, this was a highly enjoyable if slightly flawed genre effort. Among the more impressive aspects to be had here is the intricate and complex web of storylines present here involving the numerous plot points brought up. With the central story involving a tribe of peaceful Indians that were supposedly immune to diseases and somehow turned into a cult of pagan practitioners, an Indian curse featuring a generational abuse on its people for several centuries and finally resorting to possession, mental illness, and involvement in a slew of mysterious accidents spread throughout the town all being investigated by a detective assigned to the small town from a major city. This is an incredibly strong storyline that gives this one the potential to have something intriguing going on and the film works quite nicely because of it which sets up the idea of these things happening in a location like this.
That also leads into the films’ series of supernatural scares once these various elements have been fully explored. The idea of the house he’s living in being haunted by a malevolent spirit dominates the first half, causing some short shock jump-scares that further the idea of something going on involving the family curse that was brought up at the beginning of the film. Other scenes, including the idea of something out in the woods serving as a physical representation of the supernatural entity they’re fighting generate some solid sequences here or featuring the possessed individual speaking in demonic tones to himself about the strange curse about to be wrought. With a solid finale offering some supernatural action and a fun resolution to everything, there are some rather likable factors at play here.
There isn’t much really wrong here, but it’s a big issue and is quite detrimental. That is the films’ obviously overlong and unnecessary running time that has no business being as long as it is, with the intricate storyline coming into play with several issues here. Not only is it all way too complex and overbearing for something of this nature, but there’s also way too much going on here that is never explained or overexplained leading to several other side issues from its length. Since way too much is going on here, the film also desperately needs an editor to trim this down as the film’s a good twenty-thirty minutes too long as it is with scenes here coming off as unnecessary and need to be removed or scenes that go on way past their usefulness, including many of the interactions between the detective and her daughter which play into the film’s storyline but are just overlong. It’s the one issue with the film and holds it back the most.
Overview: ***/5
For the most part, the flaws outweigh the ambitious ideas present here but it shouldn’t be enough to turn off what is a better-than-expected effort with these flaws present. Those who are far more forgiving of this kind of genre effort or a fan of this kind of ambitious indie effort will have the most to like here while most others who are turned off by this kind of film should heed caution.
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