Director: Suzanne DeLaurentis
Year: 1996
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Heading out on a road trip together, a group of friends trying to reconnect with their children find themselves stranded with a bizarre family in the middle of nowhere who offer them shelter until they can move on, unaware that the whole thing is a trap to lure them into their cannibalistic business.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent enough if somewhat flawed genre effort. Among the better factors here is a solid enough attempt at getting a strong starting point for the eventual turn from the host family. The initial idea of them coming to the farm as a detour following their trip out into the countryside as a means of reconnecting and finding themselves stranded in the area when the van breaks down, which means they’re forced to stay at the family’s farm on the side of the road until everything is fixed, provides this with a strong enough starting point. Since that provides a chance to get to know them and their kids while on the trip, the whole thing serves to get them to the farm where everything is nicely designed to feel like genuine hospitality yet is so slightly off that it’s possible to miss the devious intent behind it all, saying they’ve been sent on special missions or that they’re on other parts of the farm. By the time this introduces the hulking, deformed son and their true tendencies are revealed, this allows for some generally solid chasing and stalking to take place around the farm, where some cheesy gore and dark revelations take place.
Outside of that, there are some big problems here that hold this one down. The main issue here is the general lack of action until the finale, where so much of the running time is spent on trying to set up the friends as being tricked into staying at the farm, which makes everything drag out excruciatingly long for such a short film. The idea of how they’re kept there and pretty much ignore what’s going on is a bit of a stretch to look into, as it all makes the different interactions come off as non-threatening, with the hospitality masking everything to the point of having no real stakes to them staying there, and given food, shelter, and other means of comfort. It hardly comes off with any kind of intensity towards anything until that ending half, as they’re blatantly off but never strike anyone until that point, and with the hulking son kept as more of a surprise, so we never get the kind of brutal action we want in this kind of scenario.
Overview: **.5/5
An intriguing enough but ultimately underwhelming genre effort, this one has some likable factors going for it but is pretty much undermined by its flaws, leaving it the kind of middle-tier genre effort it turns out to be. Those with an interest in this style of genre effort or who are curious about it will have the most to like, while most others should heed caution with this one.
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