Director: Onur Karaman
Year: 2023
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
With her husband missing, a woman living with several other women waiting for him to return slowly sets her off on a downward spiral into insanity as the constant fear of a looming presence in the house signals her that something might be wrong with her and tries to keep her sanity intact.
Review:
This was an ultimately problematic genre effort without much going for it. Among the few bright spots found here includes the film’s psychologically-minded atmosphere that carries out the longer she stays in the house. Featuring the three of them in some congregation for nearly the entirety of the running time, the sense of isolation and loss that emerges the longer they’re together gives this a highly effective sense of unease that builds up here that gets brought about even further with the strange sightings that go on over the course of the film. Since it’s never clear what’s going on and that her mental issues might be the cause of it all, there’s a solid attempt at an atmosphere present here which could’ve gone further than it should.
There are some big problems to be had with this one. Its most glaring problem is the fact that the minimalist approach and utterly soul-dragging pace don't leave much room for this one to really generate much of any interest once we get settled in. After a while of knowing what the concept is about and realizing that there's not a lot in the way of genuine scares with the focus on each of the women yakking at each other about the situation, the resulting psychological impetus for the storyline to play out doesn’t strike this as all that interesting or enjoyable or thrilling. It just becomes endlessly bland and dull seeing this play out in an agonizingly slow fashion and not resolve much. With barely any scares and the focus on grief and trauma being a major focus here, it makes for a drab and dull experience.
That gets brought out even further here with the film resorting once again to that tired old trope of unresolved grief and loss forming the backbone of the film’s purpose. This is such a tired old cliche it barely strikes any kind of resonant cord at all with how we’re supposed to react to the victim here who’s gone through the act of losing her husband but that alone doesn’t make the film any less of a chore to get through with the focus on this trope getting trotted out once again. On top of that, using the theme as a reason for her shut-off behavior but not expanding any further on what else is possible here beyond the banal use of explaining away the ghosts she’s continually seeing wrings the fun out of this one completely and really does undo this one quite heavily.
Overview: */5
A barely worthwhile psychological/supernatural genre effort ruined by several underwhelming or unenjoyable elements, there’s not much to really say about this one. Those that enjoy this approach or style might find this tolerable at best but most others out there shouldn’t really be bothered with this one.
This review is a part of our coverage of the 2023 edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival. Click the banner below to see our complete coverage of the festivities:
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