Director: Ben Hausdorff, Jonathan Kadin
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Heading out for the weekend, a group of friends rent a special property in the middle of the desert to relax for the weekend, but when they start to suspect that someone is stalking them at the house, they realize that they’re being used for a deranged madman’s killer game.
Review:
Overall, this was a disappointing and generally bland feature. Among the few positives to be had here revolve around the different interactions that take place, bringing the group to the remote house, and how everything gets started. The early scenes of the group arriving at the house and acclimating themselves to the property, where they partake in various hiking or poolside activities under the guise of this being a normal vacation spot in the middle of the desert. By the time the group realizes that something might be wrong with the numbers dwindling unexpectedly and strange clues about someone following them, the inclusion of several outside kills on the property manages to heighten the tension about the unseen masked killer stalking everyone. These attacks, with the inherent brutality displayed here involving the vicious kills featured here and the idea of watching everything on hidden cameras, are rather fun and generate some tension with the relentless nature of the killer, making everything feel that much more impactful.
There are some big issues here that hold this one down. The main drawback with this one is the absolutely banal group of friends that are being followed here, as the video being watched is a group of immensely unlikable set of friends who are stuck at a remote house in the middle of nowhere, being forced to follow along traditional influencer-culture setups that make it really difficult to connect with them during the first half. Far too much of this section is based on the group barely being that interesting, either with them wandering around the house without much of anything happening, so it’s slow-going as well to really highlight the difficult nature of getting interested in the film. The other factor with this one comes from the rather irritating factor of not being able to recognize the danger of what’s going on and being unable to preserve themselves in getting out of the situation, staying there when people disappear or failing to recognize what the cameras are recording them for, leaving them to be in danger solely through stupidity to keep the film going, coming together to hold this back.
Overview: **.5/5
A frustrating enough genre effort, there’s enough to like here that it manages to be worthwhile enough even though there are some major, crippling issues holding it down. Those with an interest in this style of genre fare or who are willing to look past the flaws will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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