Director: Adam Ethan Crow
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After being framed for murder, a man sets out to see if the stories about the home being subject to demonic possession and tries to prove it on the new family renting the apartment but when they start to deteriorate under its influence they find the truth about the being and try to stop it.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty decent if detrimental genre effort. Among the better aspects at play here is the films’ strong build-up over whether the central storyline involving the cursed artifacts and the murderer’s possessed state. With the opening crime setting the stage for the main conflict to come in the film involving the use of the supernatural as a means through which the influence eventually devolved into the eventual murder of the family and the need to bug the house with the supernatural attractions that the secondary family that moves into the building while undergoing the experiment to prove the point of the influence in the building gives this a nice touch to start off.
As well, when the film tries some of its supernatural scenes are rather fun and have some genuinely creepy moments. The series of hallucinations showing the ethereal demon floating through the house for several nice shock scenes that are highly enjoyable which moves into a strong series of brief attacks with something happening to the family without much notice and the resulting toll it takes on him as a viewer of everything is rather nicely handled. With the big attack on the visiting friends resulting in several highly impressive and chilling shocks with the demon violently wiping them out in grand fashion, it all builds to the finale where the tormented family members are all viciously attacked for a fun finish.
There are some minor issues at play here. The main drawback is the films’ decidedly sluggish pacing that keeps it from really letting loose in the scares for the most part. A lot of this is based around the incessant need for drama rather than really going full-scale with the horror as the incredibly twisted and convoluted storyline here doesn’t really let that happen, as the new family that moves into the apartment going through their own internal issues are not that scary or thrilling. While the desire to feel a part of the family or trying to help raise stepdaughters is a great way to build up sympathy, focusing on these issues instead of the supernatural experiment at the heart of the film causes the film to be quite slow-going for the most part.
That’s also enhanced by the films’ rather bizarre structure where the central premise of testing to see which of the individual items itself is possessed causes a jarring quality to the pacing. Stopping every so often to switch out the item in their apartment for a new one and then waiting to see if it will work its magic on them means that a lot of trial and error occurs throughout here and he must find new ways to worm his way into the apartment to see what he can do next. Given that this also enables the secondary storyline about how his greed for fame and fortune from the incident rather than the safety of the family shows off his sleazy side, it also doesn’t allow us to care that much about him. These are the issues that hold this down.
Overview: ***/5
A rather enjoyable if somewhat flawed supernatural effort, there’s enough to like here that it’s a watchable enough effort without much here really making this a much bigger genre effort. Those who only appreciate the kind of supernatural genre efforts will really like this one, while most others out there should heed caution.
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