Director: Brandon Christensen
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Returning home from college, a student spending time catching up with her family is roped into babysitting for a friend at a local sheriff’s house for his kid on Halloween night, but when she finds herself harassed by a killer, she must find the motivation to stop him.
Review:
This was an okay enough slasher throwback, although it had some issues. Among the better factors involved here is the fun enough and likeable setup that provides this one with some intriguing enough storylines. The main storyline about the woman coming home and trying to make up for lost time with the rest of her family, only to get brought into the babysitting gig that brings her out to the remote house where the rest of the film takes place, offering the kind of setup where it could've been somewhat fun. The constant notices of the stranger in the area wanting to target her but the series of different interactions found there offer up the kind of suspense that really should've made this far more tense when it gets to the realization that the killer is stalking her in his house following up on the police investigation taking place alongside all this, providing this with some likable enough factors.
Outside of this, there are some big issues present that keep this one down. The main drawback is the sluggish and draining tempo of the secondary storylines, which aren’t particularly interesting or engaging enough to provide a reasonable series of interactions that keep the film moving along. With the majority of this focusing on the murder tapes revealing a gruesome accident in town from years earlier that the sheriff is dead set on solving which instead seems to paint the most obvious suspects of the crime, it feels quite apparent what’s going on here as there’s little about this that’s deviated from the expected nor is any of it all that interesting. The connection between the stories is trying to make the connections happen, but it ultimately consumes the running time before coming back around in a predictable manner at the end.
The other factor holding this one down is the series of nonsensical and generally confusing revelations that come about from the killer’s final unraveling and motivation. This is the kind of wholly mixed-up series of plot points that would require so much contrivance to play out to come together that there are some unnecessary steps to set everything in motion, which are pulled together more so that it’ll be a surprise rather than a genuine factor of this one if it were to come off in a logical sense. That goes as well for the strange resolution that has some bizarre choices here with regards to how the survivors come together and letting everything play out as it feels to go against the rational parts of the storyline for coming up with a shocking ending that doesn’t make sense, all of which come together poorly to hold this down.
Overview: ***/5
An intriguing if overall troubling genre effort, this one has enough going for it that there are some likable factors here, even if they get overwhelmed and dragged down by its negatives. Those with an interest in this type of approach or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like with this one, while most others out there should heed caution.
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