Unhinged (2017) by Dan Allen

Director: Dan Allen

Year: 2017

Country: United Kingdom

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Slasher

Plot:

Traveling through the English countryside, a group of friends heading to a wedding get stranded at a remote house in the wilderness with a lone woman who lives in the house, and when they start disappearing come to realize something monstrous lives there with her and must escape alive.

Review:

This here was quite the decent and problematic remake effort. One of the few more enjoyable elements is the rather intriguing slow-burn style of setup this one takes, which follows along the original rather nicely. From the initial abduction point that gives them a fine reason for being stranded as well as a tense sequence on it's own, to their arrival at the abandoned house and the strange customs imposed on them by the owner which starts off as somewhat unnecessary but soon comes to have far more significance with the later revelations given here which is revealed with the stellar scene of them overhearing the conversation out in the backyard with the unseen force wanting them out.

That this one ties that in with the fine backstory that takes place in the beginning, which features rather prominently in the middle, where not only is it fully revealed what happened, but it plays into the incredibly tense and chilling sequence of her being subjected to a series of intense tortures, where he engages in all sorts of brutal measures, which are quite fun to see. The other fun part here is the fine stalking at the end from the chase through the woods and the battle in the house to brawl around the outside of the house, which has some fun energy to it that is helped off with a rather creepy look to the killer.

These here manage to hold this one up over somewhat prominent and rather obvious flaws. The main factor here is the rather bland and banal pacing that really makes for an extremely uneventful first half. The exploits of the group getting stranded at the countryside inn and finding their accommodations to be quite unappealing aren't that exciting and really make this one feel so dreary and sluggish that it's hard to be interested. The other problem with the utterly dragging and detrimental pacing that comes up here is that hardly anything happens that resembles horror sequences for large stretches of time, meaning too much is featured with them engaging in those extracurricular activities that don't mean anything for this one to have any kind of momentum or energy at all, and rendering it quite a dull time.

The other big issue here is the problematic and truly troublesome stalking scenes at the forefront of this one, as the vast majority of it's supposed horror scenes are completely inept, with non-suspenseful scenes in the woods when you don't see anything behind her to just bland moments with the killer interacting with the victims or just being so dark as to make it virtually impossible to tell what actually happened. Combined with the obvious low budget that renders a lot of the scenes as being cheaply done, these really hold this one down.

Overview: **/5

A decent enough yet really troubling effort, this one manages to be likable enough and has some worthwhile factors to not be a complete waste, while the big issues featured here do keep it down quite heavily. Those with an interest in this style or who don't mind the issues here will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.