Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country. With tensions already flaring, an encounter with an unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love and their flesh.
Starting off hot, the inciting incident bothers me. Drinking the water in the cave because they've been there for ten minutes and they're suddenly very thirsty. This just really took me out of the movie. Please try and not have your characters do something so stupid. They should have just fallen in the water and spit it out or something. This just seemed very contrived.
I don’t really understand what the dreams that he was having have to do with what is going on in the rest of the film. Is it somehow there was something in the house or in the area causing the dreams? They seemed to only appear once they had moved in to this new house and maybe it’s entirely just all in his head. Maybe none of that was real. I don’t know if there’s there’s a real explanation for that. I think it’s tacked on to add scares throughout the movie where it would’ve been more of a character driven movie up until the point where they go into the cave.
I think it’s interesting that the church fell in this cave and you’ve got like this weird naturalistic thing happening. It’s unclear to me why the caves pool of water looks like that it reminded me of the source of darkside energy in the Rise of Skywalker. Really ended up feeling like a set and not real life.
When we first meet the other teacher there is a long enough shot of his hand to notice that he’s wearing two wedding rings. I thought this was a nice subtle detail.
I liked both of the main actors in this film. Obviously they have some chemistry since they are married but that doesn't always translate to screen. Despite some clunky dialog they have some good tension building scenes and are both quite good when things start going the body horror route.
I think the movie looks good. The color grading and the house seem cozy, but also isolating at the same time. It’s a unsettling combination. Some of the body horror stuff actually ended up looking pretty good. With some of the early stuff that is minor building good tension for larger set pieces like when their hands crisscross into each other‘s arms.
The trailer gave away quite a few too many of this movies tricks so that was that was a little disappointing. If you watch the trailer you basically know what’s gonna happen.
I guess the exceptions are the cult and the monster. The monster was so poorly done that it just didn’t really work for me. The monster from the end of The Substance it was not although I get the comparison. The cult seems to exist only so the other teacher has motivation to turn on them. I don't know that I needed an explanation for why it is happening. Almost seems less scary knowing.
I think it’s worth watching but I don't there's a lot of rewatch potential for me anywayaw.
This is day 14 of 100 Days To Offload.
Comments
This blog uses a Mastodon and webmentions for comments. You can comment by replying on Mastodon/ActivityPub/Fediverse account or webmention.