I've been on a prolonged hiatus of sorts. With lockdown looming once more around here, I figured a few horror films would be an undemanding return to viewing. It's that time of year anyway.
This one seemed to hold some promise among the few I've managed to see. Apparently some of the same people who made the lovely Housebound would be involved. It seemed that it might have some of that New Zealand spark which I love, usually a quaint neighborhood providing the room for slimy inventiveness.
They were probably aiming for something of the sort. A man travels to a remote cabin to meet his estranged father but once there, a trapdoor opens beneath our feet. It does have some of that irreverent tone, blood spatters in a few places. But it kind of limps along, over just as it would have to get going. You have to be carried outside story at some point with these, staging faster than we have time to catch our breath.
But it's an oddly fitting metaphor for the film that Elijah stumbles awkwardly through a story, always slipping up, never really improvising even when he does.
This one seemed to hold some promise among the few I've managed to see. Apparently some of the same people who made the lovely Housebound would be involved. It seemed that it might have some of that New Zealand spark which I love, usually a quaint neighborhood providing the room for slimy inventiveness.
They were probably aiming for something of the sort. A man travels to a remote cabin to meet his estranged father but once there, a trapdoor opens beneath our feet. It does have some of that irreverent tone, blood spatters in a few places. But it kind of limps along, over just as it would have to get going. You have to be carried outside story at some point with these, staging faster than we have time to catch our breath.
But it's an oddly fitting metaphor for the film that Elijah stumbles awkwardly through a story, always slipping up, never really improvising even when he does.