Director: Elaine Chu
Year: 2015
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Years after a childhood trauma, a woman returns to her haunted hometown to shoot a story on the abandoned asylum where a horrific accident occurred and finds that she's become part of a lingering curse attached to her past making her question her very sanity the deeper she goes.
Review:
This was quite the decent if wholly flawed effort. One of the films' better aspects is the fact that this one goes for the rather strong sense of atmosphere and suspense in this one which manages to really make this creepier than expected. Among the better aspects of this is the film's great opening, where it shows the making of one of their home videos in the asylum where the creepy, chilling atmosphere located in the dark, dirty location is taken to a nice extreme with the location and setting alongside the fact that they're shooting the film there which does the nice thing of putting kids in danger.
Back in the present day, there's plenty to like here with the journey back to the area, and stopping off at the same place makes for some creepy moments throughout here as they explore the same areas where it has the same events being replayed as before where the imaginary friend begins to reappear and the different trappings within the tunnels that echo what they went through as kids. With the vast amount of time spent on her returning to her childhood hometown and how they've come to terms with the incident as adults, there's some fun to be had here with the now demented and delusion network of friends she has in the town who have been affected by the situation and how the curse of the asylum still lingers which makes for a great background to build off the main storyline here within the film involving the crazed nun and the events at the sanitarium.
While these elements here make for quite a solid framework here, there are still some troubling matters here. The biggest issue here is that there's very little about the way it features such a pronounced and complex storyline here on this kind of work as there's so much going on here that tends to get glossed over in barely-there segments only to feature absolutely rushed and frenzied scare scenes rushing past the needed plot points this one attempts. Going from what was supposed to the nun's history and connection to the asylum with what she did there and how that matters to them is just one of the rather confusing matters brought up here that really needed more exposure to get a full understanding of, and how it all tied into the rushed finale is a big issue for this one to overcome.
Likewise, the film's incredibly low budget which hampers the film more often than anything else here, as the supposedly creepy sanitarium is clearly more of a bunker with a few redressed walls to signify the different areas within it. The last issue here is the film's rather rushed finale which really doesn't make much sense and tends to go by so quickly that there are some missing pieces here because of what happens and it's a bad note to end it on. It's quite decent enough but does have its problems.
Overview: **/5
A generally watchable supernatural thriller but still highly flawed overall, that its flaws good this one down as much as it does manage to make this somewhat weaker than it should be. Those who enjoy this kind of indie genre effort or don't mind this style of film will be the most enthusiastic about it while most others who aren't into this approach should need caution.
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