Director: Isaiah Russell
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Following a big celebration at work, a group of friends decides to go on a special camping trip out in the woods to celebrate, but as the trip starts to bring up hidden tensions and racial resentment, they also find the summoned spirit of a woman among them killing the group one by one.
Review:
This was a generally weak and lifeless effort without much going for it. Most of those positives are tied to the finale, when they finally arrive at the campsite and begin diving into the reasoning for the trip and getting caught up in the supernatural rampage going on. The whole reasoning behind the trip is that his work friends conflict harshly with the more normal day-to-day friend group that he has going on the trip with him, which makes everything turn into a huge racial subplot when everyone starts walking on eggshells around each other since his friend group is black and the work group isn’t, leading to a slew of tense confrontations that tie into the different situations presented, with the different issues being presented as confrontational against each other, setting up some generally fun moments.
By the time it moves beyond this to the slashing that takes place in the final half, it’s got enough animosity built up between the group that it makes sense that everything takes place on a skeptical route, not trusting anyone else around them. The backstory about this figure, involving the general history of what happened to the woman, her connection to the group, and the traditional campfire story retelling everything, is quite intriguing in concept, but everything here is handled with the kind of low-budget ineptness that makes everything look all the more cheesy than anything else. Even with the flimsy ambushes and weak slashing that make for underwhelming features, hardly anything generates a genuine genre thrill or creativity, as it hits constant tropes and experiences dozens of others have already done.
The other big factor here, more than anything, is the excessively dragging pace that has so little genre fare going on that it never really has the chance to dive into something interesting. With the majority of the first half looking at the relationship between the friend group and trying to get them onto the same page with his work friends who are also showing up on the trip, creating this kind of racial tension drama that not only isn’t all that interesting but also keeps the action contained to the point of making its genre qualities questionable. The content of the drama is fine, but it holds up the horror fare until the final few minutes after we’ve had all this in-fighting and arguing about the two instead, which makes the issue stand out even more when that’s all it offers. Overall, these all manage to bring this one down.
Overview: */5
A generally disappointing and underwhelming genre effort, there’s not much to like here that keeps this one going, as the multitude of flaws here overwhelmingly keep this from what it could’ve been. Those with an interest in this approach or style will have the most to like here, as almost everyone else out there should heed extreme caution.
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