Director: Jeffrey Scott Collins
Year: 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Haunted House
Plot:
Moving to a new house in the countryside, a British family tries to adjust to their luxurious home and the growing series of weird incidents that start to take place around them, but as they stay there find that a witch’s curse has befallen upon them and must find a way to stop it.
Review:
Overall, this was a really impressive and likable effort with plenty to like about it. Among the better features of this one is the incredibly strong and worthwhile setup that manages to offer up some intriguing ideas in a formulaic storyline. The first half manages to bring up the kind of familiar tale that dozens of films have gone with, from the loving family going out to the country to see a new house of theirs and start fine before slowly succumbing to a malevolent supernatural presence that starts to turn their lives upside down in the best haunted house traditions, making this feel fun enough at the start. The inclusion of a series of strikingly disturbing incidents here, with the family unable to realize that the series of interactions and encounters they have around the house, involving them being continuously subjected to the ghostly visions of spectral figures within the house and not being aware of it, makes this incredibly fun due to how well it plays up to the standard haunted house formula in play here.
Those encounters are usually immensely freaky and quite chilling, being more than worthy enough on their own to set up the idea that something’s wrong with the house. Starting nicely with the initial setpieces repeating the same formula where they witness someone standing menacingly in the shadows behind them or just off to the side, performing some kind of bizarre, unnatural movements and then violently mimicking their own deaths before snapping into reality without any idea of what’s going on, there are some incredibly likable and somewhat chilling ideas here. With this building into more overtly obvious and terrifying setpieces involving possession of the family members to enact more deviant actions against everyone else, manipulating visitors into killing off others around them, and turning the family against each other, this one manages to also include some solid bits of brutality and intensity into the mix, which is what helps this one considerably.
By the finale, when it goes for full-scale possession and uses supernatural meditation to keep things from escalating, there’s some fun here, even if it highlights a few slight problems with the film. The idea of a final big confrontation with the possessed family member running around, using their inherited powers to become something akin to a slasher-film villain, works well, especially in how it targets and torments the others. The brutal action and generally vicious intensity on display here are incredibly fun to get through on a pure visceral level, although it highlights this one’s main drawback in that it crams too much into it, so it feels like overkill. The whole thing works nicely with the whole spiel about the witches being burned alive years ago and now haunting the space for what was done to them, but to then suddenly include possession and body control, especially with that kind of indestructible mannerisms, feels like it should’ve happened earlier to make it more meaningful, especially with the inclusion of the witch at the end to make it a fair fight. This isn’t a true detriment but does hold it back slightly overall.
Overview: ****/5
An immensely effective and worthwhile genre effort, this one manages to bring about the kind of generally enjoyable qualities that manage to offset a few minor and barely negligible flaws. Those with an interest or appreciation for this particular style, or who are intrigued by this one, will have a lot to like here, while most others might want to heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment