Director: Spider One
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
Taking a road trip together, a group of girlfriends arrive at a remote house in the desert for a special bachelorette party but when the fiancée and his friends show up unexpectedly the girls discover the horrifying secret the men share and must race to get away before they’re killed.
Review:
This was a pretty decent if generally underwhelming genre effort. One of the film’s better elements is the rather intriguing setup that gives this one a rather solid starting point for its later shenanigans. The trip out to the desert and the amount of time spent alone with each other to get to know them and their issues, not just the issues that get brought up when they’re both drunk but also sober that bonds them together despite those other factors, starts the film off well. The constant arguments that pop up are genuine issues that add a nice bit of spice to the proceedings which provides a nice bit of conflict to everything and setting this up nicely.
That provides this one with plenty of fun once it gets to the crash from the boyfriend and his friends which sets everything in motion. The initial idea of what’s going on is quickly changed by a great reveal sequence with one of the girls at their compound that moves this along at a faster clip. Overall, this offers the type of high-energy action with the group attacking the girls and bringing about some frantic attempts to get away that are quite fun and feature far more brutal gore alongside the effects used for the reveal. As this generates a highly effective final half on top of the fun first half, there’s quite a lot to like about this one.
There are some issues at play with this one that hold it down. The main issue featured here is the somewhat confusing nature of the relationship that’s at play between the sister and her fiancée, which is not handled all that well. There’s very little about what makes the two attracted to each other since we’re told they’re different people leading very different lifestyles and what we know about him makes it seem quite odd how they would even meet, much less showcase what would make her attracted to him in the first place. There’s way too much questioning happening about this part of the film, and it has a cheap feel as a result with no answers given.
The other detrimental issue present, which isn’t as big of a deal but still somewhat harms this, is the somewhat overlong and dragged-out finale that is trying to build some suspense in what’s going on but ends up just leading this down a path of inevitability far more than it should. The endless scenes of the older sister running around the cabin, tidying up, and just generally not doing anything all for the sake of wasting time for a final shock it’s quite clearly aiming for is a bit distressing with so much of the running time building up this obvious point so it can be somewhat distressing. Otherwise, there’s not a whole lot else wrong here.
Overview: ***.5/5
A highly enjoyable and more effective effort than expected, this one has quite a lot to like here and manages to hold itself up over some detrimental factors holding it down. Those who are intrigued by this type of indie effort or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while those turned off by these issues should heed caution.
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