Director: Andrew Adler, Andre Hepburn
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After breaking out of prison, a group of escaped convicts arrives at the home of a woman whom they accidentally killed her children years ago, but when a deadly secret turns the tables on the group, they have to go against a dark voodoo priestess to get out of the house alive.
Review:
On the whole, this was a severely disappointing and disjointed genre effort. The central setup of this one, not just taking the initial starting point of a home invasion that turns into a setup for this kind of voodoo-based revenge, allows for a strong series of twists to come about, which has a lot to like. The dark truth about who is in charge of the situation and the different interactions that come about with their bodies being twisted and mutilated through voodoo manages quite a lot to enjoy when we start getting the full force of what they’re dealing with. These focus on some surprising revelations more than action, as the majority of the time isn’t based on ripping the guilty party to pieces, but it does manage to get some likable factors when they occur, especially when it finally comes back around in the finale to generate some solid ideas here, which are enough to hold this up overall.
There are some big flaws here that hold this down. The biggest issue here is the fact that there are so many extraneous aspects on display regarding how the whole thing is set up that it takes forever to get to its main point. The whole invasion angle at the start, acting as a way to get the guilty party to her house so that she can undertake her revenge ritual with her husband as a secret member of the gang, is an immensely clumsy and contrivance-riddled plot to get things together that just feels draining once you realize the whole purpose behind it all. As well, the scenes featuring the group being stuck in the basement, conversing about the situation, wondering what’s going on with their hosts, and how they’re going to get free don’t have any kind of urgency or sense of motivation behind them, so it all feels as though there’s far too much useless material here for this kind of film.
As well, once it starts to evoke the actual ritualistic means of them getting revenge on the couple who killed their children, it seems to take a backseat to other ritualistic matters during the middle section. After those initial few encounters that provide some decent enough encounters, the rest of this section is spent on uninteresting conversations with the dark voodoo master at the center of their training or making sure the police officer with a crush on her doesn’t enter the house to foil their plan. It leaves the pacing during this part of the film incredibly lax and bland, waiting for something to happen. That makes this one feel messy and convoluted when trying to generate some interest in the purpose behind this one, where the whole point was the revenge, only to focus on other factors instead. As the rest of the issues are mostly related to its low-budget limitations, these are all that hold this one down overall.
Overview: **/5
A decent enough but entirely problematic genre effort, this one has some worthwhile features at points, but is generally let down by enough negative factors to keep it down overall. Those with an interest in this kind of genre fare or who are curious about it will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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