Director: Barnaby Clay
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Plot:
Traveling out to the desert, a man trying to photograph an eclipse becomes stranded in the area and seeks shelter at a strange woman’s house, but after finding himself trapped in the house with her as a group of feral children prevent his escape tries to find a way out before he perishes.
Review:
On the whole, this was a massively enjoyable feature. Among the most enjoyable facets here is the means through which the slowly escalating situation brings about a generally creepy setup. The starting point through all this is creepy enough as the route to the woman’s house in following the strange kid and arriving at the pit at the bottom of the canyon where there’s no one else to help out beyond her gives everything a rather uneasy and unsettling vibe. That carries over to the way everything starts to pan out for him while staying there, with the caretaker-like quality observed here that takes on a helpful tone for the way she helps nurses him back to health for the majority of the first half. As this is coupled with the arid, desolate landscape in place here, this has quite an impressive setup.
This setup gives the films’ descent into psychological downfall feel far more earned and unnerving. The time they spend together without really answering questions about why she’s there in the situation with the boys who seem to terrorize them one moment then drop supplies down to them the next, it just creates such a fine psychologically maddening setup that there’s a great deal of tension found within the confines of their relationship as the more he tries to escape the scenario which is then tested nicely as the gruesome setup plays out in a series of untrustworthy revels involving why she's made peace with the situation as well as his slowly-growing acceptance. That plays a big part of the solid finale that might be sign-posted a bit too readily but still gives this a lot to like overall.
There isn't much holding this one back but it does have a few small issues. The main drawback here is the overall confusing nature of what's happening as the ho-hum acceptance of the situation makes it feel far too dragged out and weird for the first part. With the bizarre setup playing out as if by routine but never explicitly stating why or what's going on, this leaves the events to unfold without taking any kind of expressed route and the myriad of possible outcomes for what's happening here drain a lot of the suspense out of the scenario. That becomes especially true as this plods along with a much longer than necessary running time which brings the film to a screeching halt with how these confrontations continue to play out in a rather obvious manner, and are all that bring it down.
Overview: ***/5
Solid enough for what it is but still has a few issues, this one manages to have some enjoyable factors but is a bit too dragged down by it’s flaws that come up. Those that appreciate this kind of psychologically-tinged genre fare will like it the most while those that prefer more traditional fatures will want to heed caution with this one.
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