Director: Steven R. Munroe
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Heading out into the desert, a group of students on a field trip to a remote Old-West town stay there to gain research and insight into their professor's latest novel, but the more they stay there they come to believe the town is haunted by the ghosts of its past and try to leave the town alive.
Review:
This was a pretty decent and enjoyable genre effort. One of the better features here comes from the generally intriguing setup that has a lot going for it. The main setup of the town's history as established through the opening encounter with the ghosts encountering the ghosts which gets further explained later on with the connection to the legacy of the area offers up an original and creative means to instigate the scares with the backstory we get here. As well, the secondary storyline about the students arriving and conducting research in the town for the teachers' upcoming book serves this well enough to get them out there and isolated in the town as a logical reason for the trip.
The other great part here is the effective atmosphere here with the supernatural antics throughout here being quite enjoyable. The initial start to their visit with the strange rules and regulations that are in place which serve to downplay modern technology in the community is a decent enough starting point which is fleshed out rather nicely with several small but effective scenarios including the photo mishap and the encounter in the private barn that gives the hint that something's happening. When it becomes apparent that there's an agenda behind their appearance and the whole thing gradually becomes far more intense, the final half picks up considerably with some strong scenes involving the evil influence taking over him and the others which allows for them to start committing violent acts without being aware of it all. That is when the film works best and is what helps to give this the most to like about it.
There are a few issues here that hold this one down. One of the biggest factors against this one is the overall lack of any established threat by the ghosts which makes a large part of the film come off as rather underwhelming. With a mystery angle involving the teacher's relationship with the town and a series of strange encounters that end at strange without crossing over into malicious, this very easily can become dull waiting for something to happen in the final half as it does such a great job building up this angle that it fails to capitalize on the scares to be had from executing it. That sets up the other major issue in that hardly any of these scenes, even at the best of times, are all that involved or scary which is a big deal when they're not involved all that often so it feels quite dull when not involving the ghosts and underwhelming when it does. These are the main issues to be had with this one which holds it down the most.
Overview: ***/5
A somewhat troublesome but still enjoyable enough for what it is, this one tends to be lowered more than expected by its negatives which is a bit of a shame due to the positives here being quite enjoyable. Give it a shot if you're a fan of this kind of indie genre effort or are fans of the creative crew while most others out there that are turned off by the style or approach should heed caution with it.
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