Director: Jack Peter Mundy
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Easter Killing
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Heading out into the woods, a group of friends are reunited years after an accident with a friend at a remote house for Easter weekend to relive the incident and find closure but when they start disappearing realize one of them might be the same one who murdered their friend and stop them.
Review:
This was a decent enough slasher with more to like than expected. Among the better ideas here is a surprisingly strong and engaging setup that comes about due to the involved storyline at play. Setting this one up immediately with the idea of the group being at the center of the central mystery that befell them years ago when their friend was mysteriously murdered while they were out partying and were never able to uncover who did it only to then be brought back together years later to a house in the countryside that sets about trying to both uncover the real culprit and stop the killer returning to finish them off works incredibly well. It’s a nice way of getting the group of friends established rather quickly, determining the nature of their relationships with each other, and getting everything started for the killer’s identity to be worked out in a fun investigation, providing a fun way of getting this set up.
With that established, this one gives off some rather strong and decidedly enjoyable stalking and slashing when that comes about. The main house, where everything comes together, is an elaborate Easter style setup with the main layout decked out in festive rabbit pieces, straw baskets, and miniature eggs of various sizes and colors, so it feels appropriate to the holiday. As well, when the whole thing shows the streamers or wall placards that are placed there in nearly every shot of the group in the house or outside, it has a festive look that matches the brutality and ingenuity of the killer to strike using a majority of the symbols within the killing method. Dumping victims in boiling hot chocolate, stabbing with decorative knives, or using the different objects around them to kill them becomes enough to provide some positive points to this one.
There are some big problems within here that do come about. The main issue here is an absolutely leaden pace that makes for a highly ineffective tempo that will likely render a lot of the goodwill with this one pretty moot. It takes forever to get past the group reuniting and catching up once they arrive at the house, which flies in quick counter to how it managed to work out the pace before involving the accident and what happened to them in quick succession. With that in place, everything about the mystery is somewhat underwhelming, with the whole thing making no sense, how they could recall events they had completely blacked out on, while failing to let the police handle everything. As this is somewhat matched by the lack of spectacular effects, a cheap-looking mask for the killer, or generally flimsy production values, it all manages to bring this one down overall.
Overview: **.5/5
A fine if somewhat problematic slasher effort, there’s a lot more to like here than expected while also having more than enough flaws to keep it down from what it could’ve been. Those who are fans of the style of indie genre effort presented here or the creative crew will have the most to like here while most others out there should heed caution.
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