Director: Evan Showalter
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After waking up from an accident, an amnesiac woman trying to put the broken pieces of her memory together starts to feel unsure whether or not she can trust what the man claiming to be her father is telling her, which is only made worse when her visions start to hint that a leech monster is also after her.
Review:
This was an intriguing enough, if somewhat flawed, genre effort. Among the better elements here is the immensely likable and fun central setup that tries to incorporate a slew of different, seemingly disparate elements together into a fun time here. The idea of the amnesiac trapped with a stranger trying to rebuild a fractured memory and not sure they can trust who they’re with is a pretty familiar trope, but it’s given some solid extra beats here by incorporating some solid enough attempts at psychological horror to be somewhat original. The unease starts immediately here, where his interactions with her and the attempts at placating her mind feel too forced and rehearsed, and the nervousness he gets around trying to prevent her from accessing specific parts of the house or her memory hint that something is immediately off. That carries on when she starts to experience weird dreams and visions of what could be her past life trying to catch up with her, so it all starts to be more psychologically unsettling in how it handles the first-half build-up.
From there, the film is a bit lost at what it wants to accomplish. The central presence of a monstrous being devouring others and turning them into a resurrected version of themselves creates some intriguing elements, but most of this is buried so far in the second half that it’s not all that interesting to see play out. This is mostly buried under a series of misguided religious nonsense and plenty of cryptic conversations regarding what mysterious antics are at the center of the film, and the whole thing ends up having the creature be such an unimportant part of this one that it almost doesn’t feel needed in the film. The rest of the film is centered on those outside elements that far outweigh the few scenes we get of the creature, so it doesn’t have much in the way of attacks or kills spread throughout here. There’s also the confounding nature of the interaction between her and the creature about how to defeat it, which is immensely confusing and makes no sense why it would be there considering it renders all the intrigue and suspense out of the final encounter. These all manage to bring this down overall.
Overview: **.5/5
A fun if disappointing genre effort, there’s enough to like here that keeps this one going well enough for what it is, even though the series of issues here are more than enough to keep this one down overall. Those with an appreciation for the style or approach here will have a lot to like, while most others out there will want to heed caution.
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