Director: Tristan Barr
Year: 2023
Country: Australia
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
Taken to a remote government facility, a man is forced to partake in a series of experiments to try to get a reduced prison sentence for a crime he never committed, but the more he undertakes the task the more he becomes haunted by his past and the idea of the creature next door getting loose.
Review:
This was a decent enough if problematic genre effort. What works well here is pretty much the entire concept of what's going on and how it's all designed to drive him crazy. The entire secrecy of the project and how its rigidity forces him to go increasingly more paranoid at the purpose of the observation provide this with a rather intriguing setup that's far more ominous the longer he stays there. The eventual secret reveal of the creature at the source of the entire thing and how it all plays out ties into the past memories that he's continually flooded with the longer he's there. It's all hammered home in the finale where the creature gets loose and helps to hype up the type of interactions that give this some chilling and enjoyable aspects here.
There are some factors that bring it down. It's all centered mostly on the idea of the film about the guy going crazy the more he stays there. With the lack of information shared with him, the repetitive nature of being trapped with little warning, and the confusing nature of the entire process of interviewing him to try to get these points across, it's just entirely confusing and not all that interesting to get started in the first half. Very little of this makes any sense and causes the film to get dragged out with these features making for a rough time setting up the psychological nature of the whole experiment. This doesn't really have a major impact on the way it proceeds but there's enough here to bring this down as it's an otherwise rather enjoyable effort.
Overview: **.5/5
An overall enjoyable if somewhat flawed psychological indie, this is entertaining enough to be quite worthwhile even if there are some factors within here that hold it back. Those that prefer the more psychological end of the genre or are intrigued by this approach will have a lot to like here while those that don’t appreciate this style should heed caution with this one.
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