Director: Francesco Cinquemani
Year: 2023
Country: Cyprus
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Ghosts
Plot:
After arriving on the island of Cyprus, a film crew looks into the tragic history of a hotel in the area for a special documentary, but the longer they stay there come to believe the area is haunted by a series of supernatural entities due to its grisly history and must get away alive.
Review:
This was a rather enjoyable if overall cliched genre outing. One of the few standout areas here is the standard setup in play which makes for a great premise as to why the area would be so haunted. Featuring a long-winded amalgamation of curses, Satanic sacrifices, the introduction of some demon raised during one of the sacrifices, and ghostly residents trapped inside, this all offers a rather fine starting point to get everything going once the supernatural shenanigans start. That the film crew arriving and beginning their show during this final stages of the restoration process following these incidents taking place is a solid background point to get this going in the right direction.
The only other part of this one that really works is the final half here where this finally manages to get its storylines out of the way and some fine action can take place. There's a nice bit to like with the various beings coming into play with the film employing nearly everything from slasher attacks including the ambush in the elevator, the cult's antics with the abduction taking place, or a series of brutal brawls that showcase the ruthlessness of the opposing group to the remaining film-crew still left alive which makes this quite a bit more gruesome than expected. It's far more energetic and kinetic than expected which is a fine touch and helps to set up the nice twist in the final moments that have an apocalyptic flavor to pay off a fine storyline from earlier to give this some positive points.
There are some big flaws here that keep this one down. The main issue featured here is the overall underwhelming pace here that gives this a decidedly dull tempo for the first two-thirds of the running time. Full of exposition about the hotel's history and the exploits of the crew going through the motions of filming their show, very little actually happens here which makes for a generally dull time getting started with the lack of interest in what's going on. It also doesn't help that the other big issue here is also associated with this section in that it has way too much going on to make sense of it all, with the story of mass poisonings, secret cult happenings around animal sacrifice, ghosts, and other monsters running around which are never explained either their origins or purpose so it's all-around confusing. These factors are the major parts holding this back.
Overview: *.5/5
Generally bland and uninteresting despite some positive points, this was a wholly underwhelming effort that really only has a few things going for it and quite a few negatives to make it worthwhile. Give this a shot if you’re a fan of the creative crew only while most others out there should heed caution with this one and leave it to others.
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