Director: Patrycja Kepa, Acoryé White
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Moving into a new house, a married couple tries to put their troubled past behind them that comes about due to their ethnic backgrounds, but the more they spend together they realize that a cursed trinket box is responsible for not just their marital issues but the hauntings surrounding them.
Review:
This one wasn’t that good of a genre effort. One of the better features here is the rather enjoyable way the backstory about the haunted plantation comes to pass which is handled nicely as a solid backstory. The old-South traditions and treatment of black people back in that time set up the reaction to the affair rather nicely with it being a serviceable means of setting up a cruel and unfortunate situation to be rectified by a curse years later, especially with how the daily suffers afterward due to the incident. As this all bleeds over into the modern day and how their moving into the house starts up not just the old inequality issues usually present in these kinds of films but also sets up the mounting sense of paranoia following the numerous visits and gifts left behind that are interpreted with that passive/aggressive manner which starts this off rather well. Unfortunately, this gets wasted with the series of supernatural hauntings in the final half being the only other likable factor.
There are some big issues with the film that hold it back. The main factor against this one is the outright sluggish and dreary pace that renders any possible attempt at suspense or thrills negated from the very beginning of the film. Featuring nothing but banal drama between the couple because it focuses on the particular trinket box with no context or lead-up to it, there's very little chance for anything to become invested from the setup so any attempt to try to build anything is just drowned out in a slew of underwhelming arguments that go nowhere. As that also causes the film to be completely lackluster with the usual style of quick image flashes of something popping out of the shadows proving to be the main source of scares here and is quite cliche overall. It could have been much better if only the main attempts to change it up weren’t obscured in a realm of absolute darkness that’s hard to determine what’s going on anyway so if it’s cliched or not it’s impossible to tell. Overall, these all combine to make for a lackluster feature.
Overview: 0.5/5
A generally dull and plodding genre effort without much going for it, there’s very little to recommend with this one as it’s quite weak due to several big and detrimental factors holding it down. Give it a look if you’re intrigued by it but most others out there have no real need for this one and should avoid it for other features entirely.
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