Director: Tory Jones
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Trying to make ends meet, a teenager gets a job at a local theme park set to reopen years after a tragic accident, but after hearing about the park’s tragic history and writing it off learn that the staff is being stalked by a savage killer looking for retribution against the park forcing her to get away alive.
Review:
Overall, this was a really likable indie slasher. One of the better features here is the strong setup required to bring about the various interconnecting storylines at play. The main setup of the family relationship that sets her out on the trip to the attraction works well enough to get an idea of the need to get involved as she needs to look after him with the need to make sure he’s taken care of while their mother’s at work is good enough to offer up the starting point for the introduction into the staff at the park where most of this takes place. This allows for another fun setup with the group coming off immensely well and likable as they put her through her paces while also setting up the fantastic backstory of the park’s history involving the former owner’s bullied teenage son snapping and going off on his killing spree that left the stained legacy the new reopening is supposed to fix that overall leaves this section incredibly fun.
With this setup established, the turn into being a fun slasher comes off incredibly well. This mainly comes from the great layout of the park that we’re taken through as the simple setup and fun series of interactions that take place here offer the kind of grand layout where the stalkings that take place are far more of the old-school variety where more elaborate stalking and chasing take place. While still featuring some of the shock ambush style sequences such as the first appearances against the workers, the more involved and lengthy ones including against the couple fooling around backstage, the fun sequence against the friend through various corridors and hallways, or the final chase against the killers turns out far more suspenseful and enjoyable. As these are usually punctuated by a brutal and somewhat bloody death at the end of the scene, these all come off rather nicely to give this a lot to like.
There are some minor flaws featured here that bring it down. The main drawback here is the cliched and immensely predictable means through which this adds a second killer into the mix as a way to provide suspense and shock to overcome. This never needed the secondary figure to be in league with the masked figure as a sibling to help it be accomplished which follows the rules and formula of the genre which is why it’s so predictable as it causes so many problems as for how that would get accomplished the way it does. Barely mentioning it and glossing over the situation only brings more attention to this factor so it does become a distraction, much like the behavior of the final girl once things start to get dangerous as she tends to stand by on the sidelines screaming and crying, refusing help until the last minute possible and dropping weapons constantly while having the upper hand. These factors all bring this one down somewhat,
Overview: ****/5
A really enjoyable indie throwback slasher effort, there’s quite a lot to like with this one while being let down only slightly by several small drawbacks to make for an entertaining time. Those who are fans of this type of indie effort, appreciate the style of throwback slasher feature, or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while most others out there should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment