Director: Bobby Easley
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Trying to get away from an abusive relationship, a woman manages to find a room in a strange house that she uses for her studies into the occult and various figures looking to access alternate dimensions, but when she realizes their true purpose tries to stop it from happening.
Review:
This one managed to prove enjoyable enough for what it is but does have some problems. Among the few positive aspects on display here stem from the highly intriguing and layered setup that comes into play here. The fact that there are several interconnected storylines at play here, starting with her abusive past and the need to move out into the house to begin with brings us into her mindset rather early on while the decision to study the mystical forces going on around her gives off a great reasoning to stay there once things start happening. The connections made here by the various forces throughout history and what she’s studying that are slowly unveiled through her studies and research into alternate dimensions that becomes a driving force throughout this one even before taking into account the secondary storyline about the series of mysterious child kidnappings going on in the area around her that is brought up occasionally.
These setups are then put to use rather nicely in a series of impressive supernatural attacks and sequences involving the demonic beings coming through their dimension into ours. The initial sequences of the purpose behind the figures being built with the math overlaid over everything to prove her point which causes a series of strange visions and hallucinations about the creatures to appear in shadow around her are quite fine and start to hint at what’s to come. The two big occult-based sequences here, the dream of the abducted baby being sacrificed and then being put under the spell of the witches to allow the demonic curse to come to bear on her, are chilling enough bringing the full force of the demonic entity's power on display. That comes to pass in the big final confrontation, featuring enough fun gore and a rather nice series of scenes that give the final battle some stakes here which come together into making this one quite fun for this kind of effort.
There aren’t a whole lot of problems here but it’s got some detrimental factors. The biggest drawback to this one is the rather obvious and somewhat limiting low-budget on display which provides several smaller factors with it. The first of these is that it’s oftentimes way too dark to be able to see clearly what’s going on, rendering much of what’s going on so briefly observed through its shadowy creation that we can’t see anything clearly. The scenes of the sacrifices taking place by the demons, the scenes of her in the attic, or just any kind of sequence taking place at night comes off with a haze that renders it quite difficult if not impossible to make out due to the low level of lighting on display, and with a bizarre green filter run through everything that makes for an even more rough time figuring out what’s happening. With the gore scenes also looking rather cheap and flimsy in their execution, there’s little about this one that hides its low-budget nature and is what holds this one back.
Overview: ***/5
Fun enough for what it is but let down by some factors, this one isn't that bad but does have those detrimental issues that will bring it down in the long run. Give it a shot if you're a fan of the style or intrigued by the concept, while those who are looking for a more faithful adaptation of the original material or turned off by the flaws should heed caution here.
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