Director: Susannah O'Brien
Year: 2017
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
After going through a rough break-up, a guy forces his friend to order a mail-order bride from a website in order to make her jealous only to slowly realize the girls' odd behavior is hiding a deadly secret that puts the entire group in danger as they attempt to mend fences.
Review:
This here wasn't all that bad of a horror/thriller. Among the qualities it gets right is the atmosphere this creates around who the woman actually is since this mystery runs throughout here. From the utterly blank, porcelain look on her face that offers no expression or changes at all, her behavioral tics of constantly banging her head against windows and sleeping in her clothes stiff as a board and not moving the entire time, there's plenty throughout here to signify that something's not right with her, a fine facet that's explored further here with the theme of the untrustworthiness of the site. Given the few early shots here of the other victims being tied up and tortured by the owner of the site, there's quite an impressive build-up here to what's potentially wrong with her.
That comes nicely to a head in the final half here as this not only gives the full reveal of her actions while also managing some solid action here from her stalking the couple in the garage to the series of fine confrontations in the apartment that reveals all forms of near black-magic and occult rituals to prolong the fun as well as the great use of black magic for the different rituals that come into play which sets this up for a fine finish. Alongside the fine gory kills and a nice visual aesthetic throughout here, this one did have some good qualities to it that hold it up over its few flaws.
The main issue here is the fact that this one offers so little information about her and her purpose for being there that really makes the first half somewhat dull. This one tends to focus somewhat on the freakiness of her behavior around them which doesn't really offer this one much during this time as there's really not much more than the two coming to terms with her being there and that holds the main part of the film somewhat. That also manages to hold the overall explanation for the girls' purpose being there until the end here which really makes the film seem somewhat confusing as far as what their purpose really is.
The last big issue with this one is the rather troubling nature of the two leads which basically makes the film hard to sit through at points. There's almost no reason for the two to be friends as there's little reason to have them be together as they're too opposite to be friends and they have such different tastes that they don't seem like people who would be friends together so they don't have much interest in the first half. Alongside plenty of moments that give away its low-budget origins, these here are what hold this one back.
Overview: ***/5
Solid enough if somewhat flawed effort that is far better than it should be, there's a lot to like here which keeps this one going more than expected. Give it a shot if you're interested in the subject matter of time the concept appealing while most others should need caution with this one.
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