Director: Mann Robinson
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Following a strange series of disappearances, a pair of police officers in a crime-ridden suburb track the case to a person targeting a young woman who’s just broken up with her fiancee under the belief that he’s the reincarnation of his long-lost love and must save her from his plans.
Review:
This was a solid if somewhat underwhelming genre effort. One of the bright spots with this one is the film’s mixing of different genre elements into a solid storyline where it can merge these different features together. The main gist of the film is the detectives’ investigating the series of disappearances that are taking place in the area, working through a procedural type of investigation that plays off all kinds of racial tension and politics that go alongside the idea of trying to capture the individual looking to commit his specific rampage. The culmination of this is the rampage focused on her with the dreams she has and the tumultuous personal life setting up the kind of long-lasting prophecy that is the focal point of the entire crime spree trying to find her. This brings about a rather intriguing and well-connected genre setup.
That provides the film with plenty of solid setups to generate some really enjoyable slasher scenes. Featuring a strong slew of scenes focused on the killer abducting victims and taking them to dark, dirty locations to begin torturing and cutting them apart, it sets the tone for the kind of brutality featured elsewhere when he appears to knock off his victims. Providing the sequence in the apartment complex where he knocks off the cheating boyfriend and his other girlfriend, the revelations with the previous cases that are shown with the aftermath shots of the mangled body that has some grisly effects work that is quite enjoyable and set the stage for the finale at the remote cabin. That’s far more effective with the rather fun stalking scenes to take out the stragglers and get to a more conventional confrontation which is really thrilling and gets some exciting revelations brought about, making for an enjoyable film overall.
This one doesn’t have much to dislike but there are some drawbacks to be found. The main detriment to this one is that the complex and twisting storyline that manages to bring together several solid and intriguing setups here also manages to make this far more complex and confusing than it should be. The whole point of his rampage towards finding the woman he believes is the reincarnation of his missing lover ties in nicely by itself but to mix it up with the concurrent storyline of the detectives-investigating-the-missing-persons’ cases which has so little to do with what his existential purpose is that it muddies up the point of everything. This could’ve been streamlined and simplified a lot more than what it is and not be as much of a drag to get going with several storylines that aren’t that interesting. Otherwise, there’s not much to hold it down.
Overview: ***.5/5
A rather fun slasher feature that doesn’t have too much wrong with it, there’s a lot to like here even with there being some minor drawbacks to this one that makes for a fun time here. Those that appreciate this kind of story or are curious about it should give it a shot while most others that don’t appreciate these factors should heed caution.
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