Director: Danny J. Boyle
Year: 2024
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Preparing for a bachelorette party, a group of friends rent out a remote house in the countryside for their activities which soon starts to turn into a deranged game of survival when the activities point to a surviving ex coming back to seek revenge on one of them for how they broke up.
Review:
As a whole, this was a fairly decent slasher. One of the better features with this one is the cliched setup that brings nothing new to the table admittedly but works perfectly at getting the necessary character points and history across. The idea of getting a group of long-time girlfriends together into a secluded house in the countryside for a bachelorette party seems to be a fairly common and routine setup but allows us a chance to get to know the petty rivalries and backstabbing nature of everyone as they sit about gossiping about their late-arriving friend or disregard anything out of the ordinary in favor of having a good time. With a few hints about them being friendly with each other as time goes on, this setup comes together rather well and makes up quite nicely for its over-familiarity.
Where the setup works is when that turns into a strong motivating factor for the different stalking and slashing scenes taking place. With their weekend turning into a disaster following a series of missteps and pointedly sabotaged activities including incriminating photographs, a get-to-know-you drinking game turned into a wholly different revelation game, and a supposed striptease that gets turned into a reminder of who they initially screwed over, this makes for a great way to compound the paranoia of the situation as they try to figure out the purpose of everything and who’s behind it. While that’s not as impactful and original as it should’ve been due to the characters being built up, there are still a lot of likable factors involved here.
When it finally gets turned into a genuine slasher that involves the wolf-masked killer stalking them and the various assistants taking them on the trip, there’s plenty of fun to be had. With the imposing mask doing a lot of the heavy lifting here due to the skinnier frame of the killer, the stalking scenes involving the limousine driver in his car or the caterer joining one of them on a hike out in the woods bring about some tense sequences. When it gets back to the finale at the house where the final confrontation with the killer occurs which also provides the full realization of their plan and what’s going on, there’s quite a lot to like here with some fun twists and several enjoyable stalking scenes, making this one quite entertaining overall.
There are some issues here that hold this one down. Outside of the aforementioned familiarity with the setup for the storyline, the other big problem with this is the absolutely convoluted and nonsensical series of reveals that come about involving who the killer is and their plan. While it tends to be fairly obvious who the one wandering around in the mask hacking everyone up, it also introduces a secondary accomplice that has one of the most unnecessary and unneeded explanations for a backstory to make that a reality which is all hard to swallow. It tends to make the finale feel less impactful than it should trying to spell out these unnecessary aspects, and alongside the cheap look of everything hold this one down the most.
Overview: ***.5/5
A rather fun slasher with a few minor setbacks, this one comes off better than expected with some great positives and just enough to lower it down somewhat from what it could’ve been. Those who are intrigued by this kind of feature or are big slasher fans in general will have a lot to like with this one while most others out there should heed caution with it.
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