Director: Gabriel Hunt
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
After a series of strange occurrences, a man sets out to fix whatever neurological condition is affecting him and disrupting his relationship with his girlfriend, slowly uncovering a strange connection with a haunting accident in his past, and they must race to keep it from consuming him.
Review:
Overall, this was a solid enough psychological genre effort. Among the better elements of this one is the incredibly likable and generally intriguing setup that manages to accomplish the necessary grounding of the story while also providing an adequate build-up to the resulting supernatural horror. Focusing on his lifestyle and troubled relationship, from the dead-end night-shift job that constantly stresses him out, lack of prospects in life, and how his girlfriend’s efforts to help him only further lead to him spiraling out of control, there are some decent enough elements brought up here. This all starts to make sense once the psychological diagnosis takes hold, and it starts to bring some strange answers about his past into the mix, featuring the kind of revelations that make some sense about what’s going on and why he’s been behaving differently or experiencing the hallucinations he’s been suffering from.
That means the generally effective and unsettling visions he’s suffering from have some chilling work to them. The opening scenes of him being attacked and knocked out by the figure on the beach have some great work bringing up a distressing side that uses the shocking actions just as much as the confusion over what it all means. The later scenes here feature the kind of rapid-fire, quick-shot visions of someone or something standing around ominously staring at him that at least give this some intriguing setup at points. The fun finale, focusing on the big confrontation at the scene where his trauma was originally started, brings the film full circle by making the point that not just the haunting but the other encounters with the various figures along the way mean something, where it all starts to make sense, giving this a lot to like here.
There are some issues here that bring this one down. The main drawback with this one is the dragging middle section that has little of any interest going on here, as the majority of the focus here is on the attempts at reconnecting to his old life. Going through the series of conversations with his old friend about what’s going on, hoping to piece together the events of a fateful crash that left him with amnesia and why he’s going through the trouble he is, leaves this with a sluggish pace, with very little happening to keep the action going since the entity doing everything hardly ever acts with the kind of malicious intent behind it to create any kind of urgency in its mission. With everything being presented as a mystery about what’s stalking him, but it being so blatantly obvious what’s going on that any real hint of suspense is missing, the pace here is immensely troublesome and problematic.
On top of that, this is also filled with some of the most infuriating and moronic characters possible that, despite all the goodwill established with its strong setup, nearly makes everything all the more underwhelming. The characters here are immensely unrealistic, with the girlfriend going from yelling at him about fixing his ways, as if that were the type of threat that should end the relationship, only to turn around and be a loving and enthusiastic passenger on the quest minutes later, with little point in the character change. The relationship with the dead security guard he keeps seeing is quite odd, with the two going around yelling at each other, which would never generate the kind of friendship they ultimately display, and it overall really doesn’t make him all that more appealing at the start when he’s got these big problems to start with. These all come together to lower this overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A likable enough, if slightly flawed, genre effort, there’s some immensely likable and worthwhile elements on display here to help this one overcome a few minor issues present here. Those with an appreciation for this type of genre fare or who enjoy a slower-burn approach will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment