Director: Andrew Dyson
Year: 2022
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Visiting his family for the holidays, a man and his girlfriend try to ingratiate themselves despite his reluctance to reconnect, but when she begins acting strangely they eventually find she’s been bitten and turned into a weredeer forcing them to find a way to reverse the condition to stop her rampage.
Review:
This was a rather fun cheesy indie effort. One of the better features here is the enjoyable setup that provides this with a fun and cheesy enough starting point. The initial meetings with the family that continuously piles on the clichés of the embarrassing backwoods family that he’s extremely reluctant to get back home to, their games and general relationship with each other all point an equally effective picture about a well-meaning family that can upset a more city-preference lifestyle to get this going.
With this in place, the film’s decent into creature feature territory is rather enjoyable. From the opening ambush of the hunters that captures the whole thing from the creatures’ point-of-view to the fateful encounter with the deer in the woods that turns her into one of the creatures over time, this all provides a generally fun and cheesy setup to be had here. This is just as much to do with the serious tone of this section compared to the more comedic aspects found in the earlier segments.
That leads into the general fun of the second half where this one goes more into the comedic side again with the attacks featured here. Opting for a series of cheesy encounters within the woods where the unsuspecting family are forced to confront the transformed creature in the woods which provides a slew of goofy, gory setpieces, these scenes playing out in a siege-like narrative while doing so is a generally fun time here. These elements all provide a highly enjoyable and goofy indie-style creature feature.
There are some minor issues here which aren’t too big. Those, though, are generally centered around the film’s obvious low-budget origins and limitations as the unmistakably indie vibe from the presentation to the atmosphere and the one-location setup obviously feature prominently and keep this one front and center about those factors from the offset. As well, there’s little here about how the curse works and the mechanics of the transformation is all speculation and inferred without saying anything which is what holds this back.
Overview: ***.5/5
An entertaining cheesy creature feature, that there’s a slew of expected laws to be found here which don’t prove too detrimental provide the film with a rather straightforward approach. Those who go for or appreciate this kind of indie effort will have a lot to like with this one while most others should heed caution with this one.
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