Director: Jon Cohen
Year: 2023
Country: Australia
Alternate Titles: The Haunting at Saint Josephs
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Trying to forget their work issues, the staff of a local hospital takes a trip for a bachelor party at a closed-down hospital turned into a tourist resort that’s said to be haunted, but when they realize it’s actually haunted by a person sacrificed hundreds of years earlier must try to get away alive.
Review:
This was a generally enjoyable and likable effort. One of the finer aspects here is the fine setup at a place that manages to introduce some solid enough storylines for this one. The initial backstory of the innocent victim initially killed at the site and the resulting haunted nature of everything makes for a highly enjoyable setup as it coincides nicely with their trip to the location for the bachelor party shenanigans. This all manages to bring the group together and get to know them a little bit more before everything starts happening with the strong series of visions and hallucinations that are shown here which all provides a fun enough starting point for everything.
That allows the film to have a rather fun series of haunting scenes throughout here. The first scenes of the figure appearing around the darkened hallways and corridors of the abandoned hospital at the very beginning start this rather nicely, much like the prank that serves as a starting point to the distrust that runs throughout the rest of the film. The confrontations and violence that arise following this point are quite fun as this brings about a series of enjoyable and brutal interactions as they try to stop those around them from how unnatural they’ve been acting which puts everything into a great touch with some shocking brutality that all combined gives the film a lot to like.
There are some issues with this one that hold it back. Among the biggest drawbacks here is the incredibly dull and generally frustrating middle section where the majority of the film’s antics are strewn over interpersonal strife within the group. The idea of being upset over the engagement and all that is perfectly fine but the whole concept of thinking it’s scary to have arguments over the belief that a character is lying without proof or engaging in illicit relationships is just not that interesting. Hardly anything that takes place here for the entire middle section of this one as it just plods along meandering through this section with barely any life to it.
The other big issue here is the underwhelming and generally troublesome finale where it has some problematic factors involved. The series of twists involved in what’s going on here doesn’t make any sense as the rationale spewed here to try to provide context for the situation is inherently faulty and really has some logical factors at play. It’s all done at the expense of the supernatural antics from the spirit who serves as the launching point for the explanations of everything but that twist ends up removing it as a source of the incidents so it comes off as a complete cheat at the end. These factors are pretty much the big factors holding it back.
Overview: ***/5
An overall likable if somewhat flawed effort, this one is fine enough as is although there are some drawbacks that come about which lower it from being much more than that. Give it a shot if you’re intrigued by this type of genre effort or don’t mind these kinds of issues featured here while those turned off by these factors should heed caution with this one.
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