One of the years most talked about horror films is also one of its most unique. Does it work though or is it trying to hard to stand out and hurting itself?
With a story as old as the slasher genre itself, we hear the backstory of a local who was killed following a bully accident and came back with a vengeance against those who did him wrong. He was then buried underneath his mothers totem which is the only thing keeping him in the dark. Once a group of adults though unknowingly take the necklace, he awakens with the sole intention of killing those in his way to getting it back.
Its a simply story and while they do give our killer a backstory, it isn’t anything new. Our series of victims stay about as paper thin as possible and the story is there just to set up something to bring our killer out.
The big draw here is that the film is almost entirely shot from either far wide angles or mostly from a steady angle behind the killers back. This gives us the feeling of watching an animal slowly stalk and hunt its prey (which is the entire premise of the story that we are given really as well). In theory its a great idea and could have worked in a shorter film, instead we are given just long drawn out scenes of watching someones back as they slowly plod through the woods. It feels like a horror nature documentary almost at times with it.
Really the only standout is the kills. I will say this movie had a lot of hype in it so going in I was expecting some insane bloodbath and was let down some. There are some great kills including one in particular but this is just your average slasher stuff mostly. They use good practical effects and draw some of them out but I never felt like this was much more violent than any other slasher and had a lot lower of a body count.
If this was a 35-40 minute short film it’d be amazing. Drawn out though to a 90 minute full length film feels like we are just given a lot of filler art house nature moments that while the premise of why its there is clear, it just becomes boring to watch.
Score :
2.5 / 5
