Director: Calvin Morie McCarthy
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural Slasher
Plot:
Following a camera crew’s disappearance, a recap of the events is released showing the crew arriving at a strange cabin in the woods to investigate a local legend for their web show, but the longer they stay there, they start to believe the figure is real and coming for them.
Review:
On the whole, this was a rather strong and somewhat effective found-footage mockumentary. Among the better elements present here is the immensely enjoyable setup that provides the kind of strong and somewhat workable starting point. The group heading out to the woods and getting caught up in the supernatural shenanigans during the course of their investigation makes for a nice way to get this started, working with the solid main idea of the group taking on the early stages of their investigation and following their tasks for a new episode, and initially being fine. The playful banter and different interactions that take place with the group in the woods during the first parts of their arrival, from revealing the backstory of the house that spurred their investigation method, the group taking interviews with various individuals around the property that have direct influence on their work, and setting up the first parts of the main exploration of the house setting up what they find later on.
Those later scenes of the group going through the house and surrounding property offer up some chilling enough moments where they stumble across something supposedly in the area. The attempts at playing around with the cameras that offers up the kind of chilling enough material which is exactly the kind of small-scale interactions that hint at something more ominous haunting the house coming into play later on, which break through into several big setpieces later on involving the group investigating strange noises in a creepy attic or sensing something taking place in the woods outside where they notice a figure potentially lurking around spooking them. This is all enhanced with the finale, where the groups’ confusion and panic over the series of disappearances, with the friends coming back to chase them down and acting extremely weird as if under the pretense of a supernatural being forcing them to confront their unaffected friends, which provides a series of creepy sequences throughout this section, ending the film on a fine note.
There are some minor drawbacks on display that hold this one down. The main issue here is the immensely underwhelming idea that the main creature the group is supposedly trying to find is hardly on-screen, mainly due to the found-footage format of the film. The film following along on the main idea of the crew wandering around in the woods or the different parts of the house they’re staying at trying to find the creature means that there’s very little actual scenes of us seeing or confronting it until the end where it gives the creature in such a brief, barely there appearance which is not enough to understand who it is, what it’s doing, or the reasoning behind the house being haunted. Since it comes about due to the film’s underwhelming use of nauseating found-footage tactic, where the group is trying to film their sexual desires or screwing around the house rather than interacting with the figure itself, regardless of how well-done the atmosphere of the house is, all of which manages to hold this one down.
Overview: ***/5
A likable enough if somewhat flawed genre effort, there’s enough to like here to not be a worthless watch while still being brought down somewhat by a small slew of flaws that appear. Those with an interest in this style of indie genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like, while most others out there might want to heed caution with this one.
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