Wineville (2024) by Brande Roderick

Director: Brande Roderick

Year: 2024

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Slasher

Plot:

Following her father’s death, a woman and her son travel to their family’s vineyard to take ownership of the property against the wishes of the workers who stay there, but as they stay to make amends grow alarmed at a series of mysterious disappearances around the property tied to a horrifying truth.

Review:

This was a pretty solid and likable genre effort. The main feature here that comes off well enough is the main setup involving the family dynamic at play once they all arrive at the vineyard and how it all plays out. The initial backstory about her disinterest in the property with how her father treated her and how it affects her son when they arrive and make friends with the two still taking care of the property all make for a great touch with how the day-to-day operations on the place go about. How the attempts at getting them into the way of working on this type of property they run while secretly making the serial killer antics feel like they're hidden in plain sight due to the way they all seem perfectly natural in the idea of a vineyard such as this. The few scenes of his psychotic antics come off well enough and provide the brutality necessary to give this a solid punch at the right moment.

Outside of this, though, there’s not a whole lot going on here. The psycho tendencies might be hinted at throughout the early stages of the film but they’re not present in any great degree until the last act leaving much of the film to function about the goings-on at the vineyard and the struggle to ensure it stays running. Operating in this manner where the farmhand and the older woman are there on the property teaching the mother and son about life on the winery and how it all works that it comes off without much in the way of a genre feel for most of the running time. It’s way too late in the film to pile on the genre material that this one utilizes which goes on so long it does start to wear waiting for the final strike to get going where it gets questioned repeating things that aren’t interesting in the slightest, which is the kind of issue here that brings this one down the most overall.

Overview: ***/5

A generally fine if just somewhat flawed feature, there’s a lot to like here which holds it up over a few drawbacks that make for an overall likable enough feature. Viewers who appreciate this style of genre fare, are curious about it, or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here while most others out there should heed caution.