Director: Scott Leaver
Year: 2023
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Cult
Plot:
After the death of his father, a man visiting his estate to look over the inheritance of the property becomes trapped inside with a woman who was his father’s caregiver by a cannibalistic cult of locals looking to enact a secret within the property and must fight them off to stay alive.
Review:
Overall, this was a fairly fun if somewhat flawed genre effort. Among its better aspects is a solid and enjoyable setup that allows for this one to play with a mystery angle more than it really should. The mysterious nature of the arrival at the house and the concurrent setup involving the mysterious stranger that shows up and starts letting his violent temper get them deeper and deeper into a strange supernatural situation that develops over the course of the night is a great all-around starting point with this one that lets the revelations about the strange attackers and their purpose for being there allows everything to take a rather varied twisting route to the final outcome. This keeps the film engaging as it trudges along at a fine pace unleashing these elements throughout a generally fun time here.
This allows the film to have a suitable setup for the series of solid action scenes that take place here. Knowing only that there are some strange activities happening on the property and that their repeated attempts to get inside seem to be in vain, this early setup makes what goes on feel quite thrilling as the mysteries are just getting started. Once this carries along and generates the home-invasion style tactics of keeping them barricaded inside the hose to the point of what gets revealed fuels the action from then, this one picks up considerably with the cult being far more aggressive in trying to deal with them and the two having to rely on their wits to escape by bringing in their discoveries in the fight which has some solid gore involved as well. These all manage to give this one quite a lot to like.
There are some issues here to bring it down. Its main detrimental factor is a rather underwhelming result of the need for bringing up so many shock reveals that it can grow rather confusing to keep track of it all. This one piles on a ton of revelations, not just about the family’s history and legacy in the area but also the connection to the strange locals that keep arriving at the property who are aligned with the cult as there are plenty of plausible reasons for everything. Bringing up a racially-charged angle for everything has merit, as does a supernatural motivation for what his ancestors were doing when they died that ties into the modern day, yet instead these issues are brought up without much to suggest what’s actually at stake until it’s too late. This, along with its lower budget, are the detrimental elements.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally enjoyable and fun genre effort, there’s quite a lot to enjoy here that holds it up while only being let down by those few factors which aren’t that bad as the big factors are more likable. Give this a shot if you’re a fan of these types of genre efforts or are just curious about this one while most others that aren’t into these factors should heed caution.
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