Director: Carter Smith
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Body-Horror
Plot:
After agreeing to a night out together, a pair of friends undergoing an illicit drug run for extra money find themselves stranded across the border in a remote cabin with the drugs slowly being revealed as being more than what they were told, igniting a deadly struggle for survival between everyone.
Review:
On the whole, there's quite a lot to like with this one. Among the more impressive elements found here is the incredibly engaging setup that provides for an intriguing time throughout here. With the initial trip providing an excuse for the two to remain isolated alone together for as long as they are while still generating an intriguing overall premise involving the two smuggling the drugs in the midst of their relationship quarrels, this adds an extra wrinkle to their dynamic. This becomes especially more chilling as the situation worsens with them stranded there and the situation becoming drastically more desperate as time goes on. Given the highly immersive queer subtext involving their relationship together as well as the later relationship with their boss, it gives a rather fun storyline for this one.
That becomes all the more fun and chilling once the film switches gears to the genuine body-horror breakdown that transpires in the second half. Spending the majority of the film in the remote cabin where the side-affects of the trip become all the more apparent involving some rather unexpected elements of the extraction that come into play. With some rather harrowing moments here that come into play here once the shipment has been ruptured and their lives are at stake the longer it goes on with just them and the drug-runner together which starts an extremely tense section of the film throughout. The build-up given their relationship beforehand gives this one a much-more impressive setup that allows the impact to hit that much harder for a lot to really enjoy here.
There isn't much that holds this back but it does have some minor issues. Most of these come in the finale where its somewhat disjointed and rather chaotic nature comes at the expense of what had come before it. Switching from a tense drug-deal-gone-wrong film about the paranoia involving the contents of the drugs inside them into a suspense-filled crime-thriller involving the drug-dealer looking to prey on the surviving member of the trip comes off with a lack of energy and direction that makes this end on somewhat of a whimper. Alongside the somewhat limiting budget that crops up at times, these hold it down somewhat.
Overview: ****/5
A highly enjoyable genre effort without too much really wrong, there’s a lot to like here which makes for a fun piece of Queer cinema that only has a few issues to hold it down. Fans of this type of feature, curious about the subject matter, or fans of the creative crew should have a lot to like here while most others that don’t appreciate this kind of feature should heed caution.
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