Free to a Bad Home (2023) by Kameron and Scott Hale


Director: Kameron Hale, Scott Hale
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Anthology

Plot:
Finding a strange box while on a walk, a woman and her boyfriend find the items inside the box might have more cursed backstories than they were led to believe.

Review:

Amy-Heading back to her childhood home, a woman's attempts at reconnecting with herself are disturbed by the arrival of her friend and the secrets that come with it. Overall, this was a decent enough start to things but still isn't that great. The atmosphere present here, especially with the simplistic setup here to utilize that, makes for a rather intriguing start as things escalate from loss of time and strange bruises to waking up in strange places unsure of what's going on which leads to the shocking discovery of her purpose for visiting. The problems start with her friend arriving and starting their relationship which just leads to no end of bland babbling between them that goes nowhere and doesn't really generate much of a genre atmosphere here leading to a confusing state of events as to why it was included after a solid start so it's one that takes way too long to get where it's going and doesn't have much going for it beyond the atmosphere present.

Ryan-After arriving at a dark and quiet house, a would-be robber tries to snatch some precious jewels inside but finds a strange woman tied up inside that makes his life troubled. This one really could've been more fun than it is but is still slightly disappointing. The fact that there's an immensely creepy and chilling atmosphere here in the first half where it's mostly built around the idea of the loner going through the pitch-black house in the middle of the night with no light and very little noise makes for a pretty fun setup to what's going on. As it leads to her reveal later on and what happens between them once he realizes what's going on with her. Still, that leaves large sections of the segment with nothing happening and very little action for its payoff which downgrades this one considerably.

Julia-Heading out with her girlfriends, a group of women on a road trip to a party in the middle of nowhere only to find their hosts' eccentric behavior might be their undoing. This was another massive disappointment that really doesn't have much going for it. About the only thing to like here is the series of outlandish and outright murderous behavior of their hosts who are quite fun and generate some solid chasing scenes along the way. Otherwise, this one is a highly dull and lifeless effort built around the endless and utterly banal driving scenes with the group doing drugs and making small talk that's excruciating to get through and really holds this one down with barely anything about it that's enjoyable or makes the group likable. Even the party scenes aren't that impressive with the group wandering around endlessly until they arrive at the central meet-up point with the rest of the group, so it's pretty long to get to its good parts as well which when combined with the lackluster reveal that connects all the stories together makes this generally underwhelming.


Overview: */5
A generally bland if still somewhat watchable indie anthology effort, that there's usually something wrong with most of the segments does end up bringing this one down more than anything else throughout here. Give this one a watch only if you're a hardcore anthology completist or a genuine fan of this type of indie feature while just about all others should heed extreme caution if not outright avoid it.

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