Director: Angela Gulner
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Shortly after giving birth, a woman moves in with her mother and mother’s caregiver to help raise the baby, which soon becomes a haunting experience involving the belief that a demonic spirit is targeting her and her child, forcing her to figure out how to save her child.
Review:
Overall, this one wasn’t all that bad and had some worthwhile elements. Among the better elements present here is the idea of the escalating tension within the house coming together as a fine excuse for the hauntings. The first half brings about a solid series of interactions here that paint the relationships between everyone in fine fashion, with the daughter and her child coming to visit her mother and care for her while she goes through her own health issues at her remote house in the countryside, only to be thrown for a loop when her mother’s caregiver is also there to complicate matters. Filled with the usual assortment of issues ranging from passing on mothering duties to the next generation, long-simmering personal conflicts coming to the forefront, and feelings of inadequacy brought about because of her struggling to be a new mother, the section manages to bring about some rather fun moments involving the dynamics at play within the house when she first arrives.
That brings about the solid and genuinely enjoyable series of hauntings that are in play whenever the daughter is left alone. The initial scenes are cleverly utilized with the function of being unable to tell if something is genuinely haunting the baby or if her debilitating state is responsible for the miscommunication it all gets written off as, giving the scenes involving her seeing something over the baby monitor, being obsessed with the crows that are constantly in the way, or the accidents that come about from thinking something is there. This is only enhanced by the constant visions of a spectral being in mirrors or the chittering noises in the background of the house that hint at an otherworldly presence which only grows over time as more events start to stack up against her, as the incidents start to create some chilling moments throughout here, all giving the film quite a lot to like overall.
There are some big issues here that bring this one down. The main factor with this one is the series of storyline hiccups in play that make the whole thing confusing and convoluted. There’s a few individual bits of outlandish behavior where it feels designed for shock moments but it instead amounts to out-of-character reactions that make no sense in the context of the film’s story, from her flipping between her different personalities and an immensely problematic sequence where she attempts to breastfeed in front of other people that comes out of nowhere and has little purpose for being there other than to justify the mother freaking out again. The other issue here is the immensely underwhelming finale, which is rushed, comes out of nowhere, and undermines so much of what came before that it comes off as being inserted for the sake of being a twist, as it doesn’t connect with anything going on in here. Otherwise, there’s not a whole lot really wrong here.
Overview: ****/5
A really solid genre effort with only one main drawback, there’s quite a lot to like here, with only a few minor drawbacks that are just slightly held back from being a higher-tier genre effort. Those with an appreciation for these kinds of genre efforts or who are curious about them will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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