Director: David Zagorski
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Finally graduating from high school, a group of friends decide to celebrate the occasion with a special getaway trip to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of sex and partying, but when they mysteriously disappear come to believe that a savage killer has begun killing them one by one.
Review:
This was a fairly fun if somewhat flawed genre effort. One of the finer features to be had here is the overall fine setup that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel and just serves as a worthwhile means to offer tons of sleazy antics with the group in the woods. As we get an immediate glimpse into their lives not just with the initial diagnosis of their graduation and the journey off into the woods as a means of celebrating that, but to see how they prepare for the trip by gathering their friends on the way there or just goofing off in the backseat of the tide there sets everything in motion by giving us a fine look into their lives on the trip there. When they arrive and it turns into a series of sexcapades with everyone off trying to sleep with their girlfriends at every opportunity in various positions makes for a fine touch as well to help get more of a feel for who they are and what’s going on.
That sets the film up well enough for the slashing antics to come off rather well against this backdrop. With the initial cold open showing off some brutal kills and stalking early on, the rest of the scenes in the woods are fine enough with the later antics coming off within the woods as great shock ambushes of the killer taking them out in quite brutal fashion. Even with the inclusion of unconventional weaponry in the attacks, this one takes a strong approach to the scenes as they’re usually kept to a more serious touch than expected with the deaths treated with the idea of a serious killer in their midst who just happens to use sex toys during the ambush sequences. Once the truth is revealed and they become aware of the killer as these ambushes are based on stragglers to the group away from everyone, the newfound mix of stalking scenes and whodunnit mystery is a fine touch allowing for some fine brutality and kills to be had here that hold this one up nice.
There are some issues with this one that bring it down. Among the biggest drawbacks to the film is the fact that so much of the first half here is spent on the general horniness of the group, preventing it from offering much in the way of genre fare. The killer’s antics are brought about in just isolated ambushes that it rarely feels like a killer is out there with them. It takes far too long for that to get started with this setup involving the group going around screwing each other around the woods. That also causes the other side effect here of the rushed finale where it tries to do way too much in such a short amount of time that there’s some weird spacing here where it never has a chance to breathe before moving on to something else in the blink of an eye is the reveal of the killer, what the motivation is, and the various interactions that came about which are handled in this chaotic manner. These are what hold this one down overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally fun and sleazy slasher throwback, there’s far more to like here than expected which manages to keep this one enjoyable enough to overcome some slight issues present. Those who are fans of this particular style or are curious about it will want to give it a shot while most others out there might want to heed caution with this one.
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