Director: Calvin Morie McCarthy
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Cult
Plot:
After the death of his daughter, a grieving father tries to look into what caused her suicide and finds a coven of her friends who tried to help her before she died, but the more he looks into the cult finds their ties to witchcraft enough to realize the deadly plan they’re about to start.
Review:
This was a decent enough if overall flawed genre effort. Among the better features here is the build-up of the general reveal here and what goes on with the cult makes for a great reveal. The initial idea of the death leading him to a support group where he gets into contact with the coven that has everything set up for their plan which is surprisingly obvious to see coming but still allows for even creepy imagery to set things up nicely. As the gradual reveal about the witches and what they intend to do with him following the exploits of his daughter, this comes about incredibly well in the second half where his corruption at their hands makes everything come together into a far more ominous which not only includes the reveal about their plans but a series of chilling visuals to accomplish everything. It comes together nicely enough to be quite fun and really helps give this some great points.
There are some big issues here that bring this one down overall. The main issue with the film is the overreliance on repeating the same tactic where the constant intrusion from the cult takes the form of dreams and nightmares that do the same thing over and over again. The fact that he has the same thing multiple times where the initial appearance of the sequence is thought to be a haunting where the witches are targeting him before being turned into the reveal that it was all a dream which is a fine tactic once or twice but gets repeated multiple times here to the point where it wears out its welcome quite quickly. It never changes tactic either so it easily comes across as something that drains the atmosphere quite easily so that there’s a plodding and draining build-up to the whole reveal due to this repetitive action. These factors all manage to give this one a few issues to overcome.
Overview: ***/5
An intriguing if somewhat flawed genre effort, this one has a lot to like about it while still having a few big problems that manage to hold it back from where it could’ve been. Those who are fine with these factors, intrigued by the concept presented, or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here while those turned off by these factors should heed caution with this one.
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