Director: Adam Cowie
Year: 2022
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Concerned with her missing daughter and friends, a woman decides to look into the disappearances by bringing a group of friends with her on a mission to go look for them, but when they discover the area is patrolled by the deadly siblings that killed off the previous group must try to get away alive.
Review:
This was a pretty solid and likable genre feature. Among the better features of this one is the series of connections and setups on display that connect this one with the original. The initial attempts at integrating the backstory from the original by featuring the same scenes that focus on bringing about the same characters is a nice touch to carry the continuity, much like the main idea of the mother looking to find out what happened to her missing daughter which sets this up to be a continuation of the previous film. Based on what we know about them, this is a trap leading the new group into the firing line of the killers as they’re unaware of what’s in store but decide to arrive at the location to look for them as this all provides the motivation and reasoning required for getting them out to the woods it comes off solid enough storyline for what’s on display.
As well, there’s also the usually strong series of stalking and slashing scenes at the forefront of the film. The opening ambush of the group on the car trip in the woods is a strong enough start to get this going, much like the later scenes offering the siblings putting their tried-and-tested striking angle to the test in a solid slew of encounters where they pick off various members of the group who enter the woods. As it carries on with a fine series of encounters inside the woods, a great setup inside their underground hideout, and more frantic chases that take place in their property’s surrounding woods, this one provides the kind of fun indie-style encounters while also featuring some great attempts at bonding the siblings together who do appear to be protective and care for each other. This adds a fine dynamic to the finale where the differing sides have their stakes for what they want to see play out but only one can win so there’s bound to be a bit of disappointment either way. This is all rather fun and provides some fun factors to make this one quite likable.
There are some drawbacks featured here. The main detriment that comes to hold this down is the somewhat stagnant setup that decides to retread the group going through the woods for their trip which consists of endless footage involving them hanging around the woods. This is fine for what they’re going for as it carries off a few remarkably solid pieces to get to know them but there’s also way too much time spent on recycling the same type of content about the reason for the trip and what happened to her daughter. This makes the first half struggle to get going with everyone trying to go through the same thing several times over. The other issue here is the rather low-key nature of the kills featured here which manage to be a bit more underwhelming than expected as most of the kills are focused on drawing the characters out-of-focus or just slightly off-screen that it remains hard to tell what’s happening so it misses out on the blood and gore usually featured here. Combined with the cheap make-up effects on the characters featured here, these all manage to bring this down.
Overview: ***/5
A bit of a disappointment compared to the original, this one manages to be quite likable for the most part and its minor drawbacks do bring it down slightly just enough overall. Those who appreciate the original, like this kind of indie effort, or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like while most others out there should heed caution.
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