Director: Ben Sottak
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Home Invasion
Plot:
Stuck in a dystopian universe, a lonely woman living in her house trying to make contact with other humans finds that several other survivors have arrived and try to take advantage of her, forcing her to reluctantly defend herself and her house from the intruders using whatever she can to survive.
Review:
Overall, this was a solid enough if somewhat problematic genre effort. Among the better features of this one is the incredibly strong and worthwhile storyline that provides this with a great setup to get dropped into. Knowing that this is a dystopian society and the remnants of a viral pandemic that has taken out most, if not the rest, of the planet and left her alone to fend for herself as a teenager in this kind of environment makes everything here far more sympathetic than it really should, especially with the bits we also get to know about her along the way. Since she’s painted as the kind of endearing, innocent type interested in playing up the traditions about Halloween that she learned from her family that can’t anymore, the desire to protect her house, as it's all that she’s known, and the inability to move on based on the attachment and traditions she has with everything give this a grounding that offers everything here a really solid starting point.
That sets up the incredibly fun and generally likable series of interactions that take place once the intruders arrive and start to confront her. The eeriness and sense of tension that arrives when they come into the house and try to make peace is so alarmingly obvious that it works perfectly with the group using her naivete against her to gain her trust and get inside, providing some fun starting points before the second half turns the whole thing into a fantastic series of frenetic, creative setpieces showing how she’s defending her home from the group of intruders looking to hurt her. This allows the film to really kick off a series of enjoyable confrontations where the series of defensive traps and setups that are used to take everyone out manage to come together immensely well, utilizing bizarre Halloween-themed innovations for everything, which are quite brutal, bloody, and immensely entertaining, and give this a lot to like.
There isn’t much wrong here, but there are some issues with this one. The main issue here is the rather messy, uneasy alliance at the heart of the film that takes place between the young girl and the member of the invading family, where they are together after the group has arrived and gotten involved in the situation. The whole thing makes little sense and has very little build-up beyond just a few slight instances of sticking up for her against the other people there trying to mock and humiliate her while they stay at the house for shelter, leaving everything to feel quite underwhelming with the amount of motivation necessary to stand with her against the invading crew. That is a point from the shortness of this one, where it doesn’t have the time to properly make that come together with enough cohesion for anything. Combined with a lackluster sequel-bait ending that comes into play, these all manage to hold this one down overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A serviceable enough, if overall flawed, genre effort, there’s quite a lot to like here to keep this going, against a few slight issues present that are enough to keep it down overall. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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