Director: Matthew B.C.
Year: 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Taking a girls’ night out trip, a group of girlfriends anger their driver and are forcibly dropped off at a remote house in the countryside with no other way to contact help until the morning, but after the caretaker brings them in to recuperate find their eccentric rules hide a killer secret in the house.
Review:
Overall, this was a fairly decent if problematic genre effort. One of the better aspects here is the generally uneasy atmosphere found within the house, as this comes off with just enough that’s off-kilter to be quite enjoyable. The whole starting point to get them to the house by confronting their stalker while on a girl’s night out and forcing their driver to get rid of them at the remote house to stay safe from him, while the time spent at the house offers just enough unsettling themes and ideas about what’s going on, the longer they stay there. These initial setpieces about the hospitality and generosity he showcases while they stay, including the strange rules for operating within while they stay, and the presence of the groundskeeper being enough to provide a somewhat normal idea of their hosts’ lives that they've stumbled into, and the few violent outbursts that strike the group when they least expect it provide some brutal, bloody setpieces that are quite fun for the most part.
However, that’s all mostly undone by the immensely slow-going and sluggish tempo of everything here, which makes everything far less intriguing or suspenseful than what it thinks it is. Far too much of the running time is spent slowly discussing their history with the stalker, the strange secret they share within the house, and the activities of the handyman who keeps wanting to warn the girls away but is hampered by his physical handicaps, which all manage to hold up the running time here with these bland and lifeless subplots. While the action is a lot of fun in that finale as the killer strikes the group in those fun setpieces, the fact that it’s so long to get there is a lot of the problems here, as the rest is due to the predictable nature of what’s taking place. Since this copies a lot of the familiar beats and setups of the original, even including the main twist, which is immensely easy to guess and doesn’t stand out at all, and with the low-budget nature of it all coming off rather easily, do bring this one down.
Overview: **/5
A decidedly watchable at best genre effort, this one manages to be decent enough for a watch if being let down considerably by several big issues present that keep this down overall. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who aren’t bothered by the detrimental figures here will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed extreme caution.
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