Director: David Kerr
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
After being institutionalized following a prank, a series of murders forces local detectives to realize the culprit was a formerly catatonic serial killer who’s heading to a special cabin where her childhood friends are holding a get-together, forcing them to stop the hulking killer together.
Review:
Overall, this was a rather strong and worthwhile indie slasher. One of the better factors here is the simplistic and straightforward storyline that offers this a chance to utilize the one-note slasher in the best manner possible. The opening sentiment about the prank that occurred when the friend group was kids and managed to inadvertently kill their friend during the course of the prank sets everything up in a fun fashion that comes together rather nicely when the action shifts to the present and we get the resulting breakout of the psychiatric facility that sets up the rest of the film. This is carried off incredibly well with the dual-pronged stories involving the police officers looking into the sanitarium outbreak and how her path of dead bodies leads to the group hanging out at the cabin for the weekend trip that takes over the majority of the film going forward. Getting to meet up with the rest of the group and how they’ve handled the intervening years since the tragedy offers up a solid enough take on the formula that it’s emulating quite successfully.
That means that the film scores incredibly well when working through the motions of a traditional stalking and slashing that the genre focuses on. These scenes are quite enjoyable and brutal ambush sequences focusing on the rather imposing female killer going around knocking off the group, focusing on short, quick ambushes that take place around the cabin in a slew of effective, shock ambushes. From encounters involving stalking the loud-mouth friend outside by a campfire to a series of impressive stalking scenes in the house where they bring about the kind of solid finale which is incredibly fun by getting out of the cabin into a church for the big chases there. With some great reveals that change around the purpose of the killer’s rampage and an effective twist with one of the members being a different figure than expected, it allows the series of stalking and brawling featured here to manage a lot to like here and helps raise this one up.
There are a few minor drawbacks with this one keeping it down. The main detriment with this one is that the group of friends rarely feel like the kind of long-running friend group that this one is supposed to be, which makes the first half here feel like a slog trying to build them up. From constantly arguing and yelling at each other about what type of pranks they’ve committed are funny to trying to hook up with everyone with a pulse that looks at them funny, there’s a real problem with this group of friends that we’re trying to follow. The other issue with this one is that, although the rampage in the bar manages to give this plenty of gory kills, the way it ties into the events of the film as a whole is a bit suspect when it’s hard to pin down when that would’ve occurred and taken place as it is, which does come off more as a bloody setpiece than anything else. These are what manage to hold it back overall.
Overview: ****/5
An immensely likable and fun slasher, there’s quite a lot of likable elements within here to keep this one going against a few minor issues that bring it down. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre effort, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed caution.
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