Director: Karyna Kudzina, Michael Vaynberg
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Forced to leave the country, an undocumented woman and her daughter are forced to seek shelter at the house of an elderly gentleman to work as his caretaker, but the more they stay there the more his unhinged antics start to signal something dangerous lurking in the home must fight to stop it.
Review:
This was a fairly enjoyable if somewhat troubling genre effort. What seems to be the best part here is the rather fun nature in which this one starts to build up to the conclusion presented. With the majority of this one content to focus on the continued ignorance of the red flags being continually offered up throughout here both in the way the constant glances and comments hint at something macabre beneath the surface, there's a big sense of this energy found in the finale. Revealing the grand design that had been building up the entire film and finally allowed to present it on-screen as they start to put pieces together about the diabolical plans in place. Tying this together with topical political commentary about the state of the world in immigration and xenophobic sentimentality, there's some fun to be had with this one.
Beyond this, though, there's not a whole lot to like here. The main factor here is that, because it spends so much time focusing on her ignoring red flags to stay there because she needs the work caring for her daughter, this becomes so obvious about what's going on that it might be fun to see play out but it's not scary or suspenseful at all. To see these flashing obvious signs about the danger of the situation go ignored simply so that it can present the ideas as a surprise is a massively underwhelming feature when the film tries to present her as being so smart that to fall victim to them is a bit disingenuous as it gets around these scenes with some blatant onslaught of ideas hoping to present this. As well as some odd slow-motion sequences that don't need to be utilized in this manner, these features are what bring this one down.
Overview: **/5
A watchable enough if somewhat flawed genre effort, there are a lot of issues here that bring this one down from what it could’ve been as there’s a lot here to overwhelm the positives. Those who are intrigued by the concept or approach will be the main target for this one while the majority out there will want to heed caution with this one.
Comments
Post a Comment