Director: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Year: 2025
Country: Australia
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Following the death of their stepfather, siblings are sent to live with their mysterious aunt at her house and struggle to adjust to her lifestyle, but when they suspect that she’s using them to further a bizarre occult ritual to bring her daughter back to life must try to save themselves.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent if problematic feature. The main thing to enjoy with this one is the unsettling air that permeates the film, which manages to generate some wholly unnerving and unsettling aspects. The psychological turmoil and unraveling that takes place at the start of the film, with the traumatic incident of finding their father dead in the shower when they come home from school, sets this up rather nicely with the following grief and mourning that takes place involving the siblings who are shipped off to a foster parents’ house until he becomes old enough to be a legal guardian. This is shown rather nicely in how the situation has affected them, with him trying to overcome a fear of showers after the incident while she gets swept up in the foster parents’ plans as she slowly starts to reveal a more sinister agenda under her sweet exterior. That this part is also tied into her own traumatic experiences and grief ties the story together nicely with the manipulative actions on display, ensuring the story is quite intriguing.
That all gets brought out nicely with the supernatural antics at the center of the storyline. Once they arrive and are convinced that something’s going on with her and the strange, mute child she cares for, it starts to make the mind-games and undermining conversations make sense with the foster mother attempting to use the daughter for her own nefarious gain, and that requires the brother out of the picture. The exploration of this setup comes about in the form of the demented child that’s at the house, which results in some of the more gruesome and unnerving incidents in the film, with destructive moments here being especially noteworthy, including munching on steel knives, biting off parts of a wooden table, or biting himself to rip chunks of his flesh off. That makes the final confrontation at the end, where everything comes together, involving what her plans really are, and the supernatural connotations of everything are brought out with an emotionally haunting resonance that washes over their actions, making for a lot to like here.
There are some issues here that bring this down. The biggest drawback with the film is the dull and sluggish tempo, where so little of this one imparts any sense of urgency in what’s going on that it’s easy to lose what’s going on. With so much of the first hour going through the notions of introducing the characters, trying to get over their grief that it never bothers to set up much purpose in the planning behind what’s going on. The nature of the rituals, what they’re supposed to represent, and what they’re meant to perform, which is all a complete blank, so that everything has little context beyond questions about everything. This causes the second half to be quite unsatisfying due to the lack of context due as the focus is away from these elements. As a whole, this is the biggest factor against the film, holding it down.
Overview: ***.5/5
A watchable if problematic genre effort, this one has a lot to like in some aspects, but has way too many problems to be more than that in the long run. Those with an interest in this kind of genre fare, who enjoy this style of feature, or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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