Director: Damien LeVeck
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Living alone in a remote house, a woman trying to keep her daughter safe from others is alarmed when a mysterious couple arrives seeking shelter from a howling blizzard outside, but the more they spend together the more the daughters’ disturbing sequence prevents anyone from leaving.
Review:
For the most part, this was an enjoyable genre effort. One of the finest points here is the truly engaging and likable setup that manages to bring about a fantastic premise for what’s about to go down. The core relationship of the mother and daughter living alone in the house and doing their best not to interfere with others due to the daughters’ condition which is initially written off as a fever but soon grows increasingly more vicious and violent the longer we stay at the house and the relationship gets explored further. This is contrasted nicely with the duplicitous actions of the strangers who arrive and begin bringing about a series of bizarre religious motivations that spend a lot of the time going back and forth on their various ideologies serving the film quite nicely.
After this, the other really impressive aspect here is the highly effective and enjoyable setup of the creature effects which is immensely effective and likable. The setup for this is rather chilling with the inhuman design structure focusing on the porcupine-like spines and hunched-over gait that allows it to scuttle along on all fours while charging after victims or hiding away in the darkness. The practical nature of everything and the high-energy chases throughout the final half put this to good use and generate a lot of fun with the chance to let the creature loose in a fantastic Christmas-set atmosphere. With the constant use of lights, ornaments, and decorations placed throughout the house to provide a solid glow of the season, this comes off rather well for a series of positive points.
There are some stumbling blocks with this one that hold it back. Among its biggest issues is a sluggish pace that makes for a slough to get through when the first half spends the majority of the section is based on conversations about their differing points of view. While setting up the fantastic interplay that goes on between them as the religious-minded mentality clashes with the more down-to-earth philosophies at work, this ends up providing an overlong beginning that engages more in banal conversations than more overt action scenes and can leave this part of the film struggling to get any kind of momentum or enjoyment out of listening to the two sides go through their paces in a combative role that’s not going to endear itself to everyone.
Even worse is the way everything piles on together towards the end which is immensely disappointing and underwhelming. The whole facet about the mysterious condition the daughter suffers under and how the various clues here lead up to this one generating a rather weak revelation focusing on the wrong aspect of the setup at play here. With so much time and focus on the mother/daughter relationship with the intruders’ misguided intentions that are there simply to be wrong the entire time. It leaves this section of the film massively familiar and treading ground that causes these confrontations to go on for quite a while longer than it should with the idea of it being more like this should’ve been more of a short film than a feature-length one. As a whole, these are when end up lowering this one overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A fun enough if somewhat flawed genre effort, there’s enough to like overall here while being let down by some big issues to be a bit more underwhelming than expected even with the positives helping out. Those who are curious about this one, are fans of holiday horror fare, or are not that put off by its issues will enjoy this the most while others who aren't into these factors should heed caution.
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