Director: Bruce Wemple
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After learning of her inheritance, a woman heads to a remote property in the countryside to look over the house that’s now hers, and after looking into a series of strange videotapes left behind, leading her into a deadly confrontation involving a cursed camera that holds the truth.
Review:
Overall, this was an intriguing and enjoyable genre effort. One of the better factors with this one comes from the rather strong storyline that offers up the kind of promising psychological genre fare that’s far deeper than expected. The central setup, offering a look at her relationship with her foster brother and sister and the resulting needs they have towards her, sets this up with the kind of strong starting point to where the later scenes of her taking a trip out of the property itself and learning more about her birth mother’s work, is a great touch. As the eventual discovery of the backstory of the house and what her mother’s work was all about through the videotapes left behind and the investigation into the different victims of the massacre that took place there begins to unfold, the resulting connection about the nature of the house and the possibility of the freed demonic entity targeting her makes for a strong overall storyline.
Once it starts to develop into the idea of what’s going on around her and if the house is really haunted, the realization of what’s going on sets this in motion rather nicely, with the idea of the real figure behind it all being quite surprising. The truth being revealed in the tapes and setting her off in a direction of discovery regarding one of the main participants associated with the project her mother was conducting at the house turns into something else entirely, not just being a fun misdirect but also a strong way of taking the story in a different direction. The psychologically damaging concept behind what’s really going on makes for some gruesome setpieces as well, from the attack on the friend who comes to visit to the attempts at tracking down her mother and the final attacks on her brother coming to check on her, setting up a great finale full of great visuals and some fun deaths as well that make for a lot to like here.
This one doesn’t have many flaws, but they do hold it back pretty heavily. The main issue is with the generally sluggish pace, owing to the repeated use of too many characters, well aware of the situation, not being forthcoming to the point of putting her in danger for no reason. It’s made clear that the residents in town are aware of what happened and what the truth about the activities she conducted there were about, yet the first half of this is spent on her running around the property looking after the house and investigating the house, which tends to lead to no real information about the main supernatural figure at the center of the film. So little information about what’s going on tends to leave it without any kind of in-depth analysis of what’s going on beyond a baseline announcement about the cursed camera and the connection with her mother’s past, but beyond that, we don’t have much else here due to the strange pacing. It’s what holds this one back the most.
Overview: ***.5/5
An immensely likable genre effort, there’s a lot to like here that manages to keep this one going as the few flaws here do impact it enough just to be slightly offputting at the end. Those with an interest in this kind of genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others turned off by the flaws here might want to heed caution.
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