Director: Charles D. Lincoln
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After a friend's death, a woman is tasked with traveling to a small upstate town to return her ashes to the woman's parents, but when she arrives the same cycle of torment she escaped from earlier starts to affect her again and must try to find the reason for the demonic torture to stop it.
Review:
There's quite a lot to really like with this one. One of the better elements present here is the inventive and enjoyable storyline for this one which provides quite an enjoyable time here. The main setup of the arrival in the small town to try to put an issue with her past to rest and slowly coming upon the idea of the corrupt forces around her trying to seek supernatural vengeance is quite well-versed here. Given that there are a lot of various aspects here trying to help establish the backstory of their relationship together and the reason for the supernatural figure to come into play later on in a fantastic twist with a lot of credible build-ups. Going back and forth as it does to showcase what happened to them and how it’s affecting her encounters with the figure in the present day is accomplished nicely and manages to give the film a strong backbone to work with detailing the horrors of being unable to escape the past.
The other strong positive with this one is the aforementioned work with the supernatural figure called upon to exact revenge against her for what happened. As the explanation for everything makes the encounters reasonable, the use of transporting her into an alternate dimension to torture and torment her emotionally and physically is enjoyable with the stark nudity making everything feel even more impactful and brutal. With the scenes taking place in an unnaturally-tinted hellscape with deformed demonic creatures, plenty of cruel demonic tortures, and the full reveal of what her torture is really about, these scenes are incredibly fun and offer the kind of creatively unhinged universe that’s fun to see how the grueling process plays out. Given the way it all looks and plays out with the graphic gore and demonic make-up effects, this all manages to provide a slew of impressive aspects to really hold this one up.
This one does have some minor issues to hold it back. One of the main factors to overcome is a decidedly overlong running time that, thanks to all those plotlines mentioned earlier, makes it run a bit long. The flashbacks to the various points in the past detailing the drug abuse, the relationship that builds between the two, and the eventual outcome of everything, but also manages to drag the film out a bit longer than it really should. None of this stuff is removable or can be trimmed, though, which is the weird part about these elements since they build up the storyline here so the twist makes sense and there’s some leeway granted to the material overall. That doesn’t apply to the finale, though, which has way too many twists and turns to see come together and despite the emotional resonance of it all feels like too many endings when it could’ve used only one or two of them. Otherwise, there’s not much to dislike.
Overview: ****/5
A graphic and brutal genre effort with a lot to like about it, there's a lot to like with this one that comes about from a slew of positive points to overcome a few minor drawbacks that don't even have much impact on it. Those who are curious about the subject matter, appreciate this style of genre fare, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while those who don't go for any of these factors should heed caution.
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