*******Warning!! Massive spoilers!!******************************
Found this while browsing through Amazon and thought the premise seemed like a good one. I really enjoyed it, I'm not sure why it's getting so much hate. No, this is not your typical horror/slasher movie with a crazed maniac terrorizing a group of friends. Instead, this is a slow-burn psychological horror that gets inside your head.
The cast is basically a bunch of beginners that don't have much experience, but the most of the conversations seem somewhat natural and how a group of friends would talk to each other. We see each one's descent into a sort of madness that is different for all of them. The kills aren't explicit or gory and bloody, which I think is a turn off for a lot of horror fans who enjoy those types of kills. However, the way they were done was effective. The first one with the axe showed just enough of the guys skull and the blood splatter that you knew what happened without being overly gory. Another great one was when Rachel stabbed Eli because he wouldn't take the sleeping pills. It is shown in an almost dream-like way, with the repeated stabbing/ Rachel saying "Take the pills" this really shows you the headspace Rachel was in at the time. She even says she hadn't slept in a long time up to that point, and it had driven her insane.
Someone mentioned the cinematography and how the movie was filmed. It does seem bizarre when it starts, but it also gives you a sense of their isolation along with how much time has passed. Since there is nothing that says how long they have been there, but at the beginning when they realize they are trapped, they talk about how they don't have enough supplies/toiletries to last very long. When they first get there and they have plenty and you see the full toothpaste tube and toilet paper, then subsequent shots show less and less as more and more time passes. It was sort a cool way to show how long they had been there without actually saying it. This was especially effective with relating to the characters because they didn't really know either. Also, the shots of nature and the trees showed you how isolated they were as well. At one point after they began to figure out they couldn't leave, the camera pulls out from the house to the tops of the trees to give a sense of that isolation as they are deep in the woods. I know many people didn't like the ending because they didn't explain it to you and wrap everything up with a neat little bow. YOU have figure out what was going on and why they were there and being kept there. Obviously someone owns the house and knew what was happening there, at one point Sam finds a bunch of pictures of other guests along with maps of the boundary similar to the one they had made meaning there had others there before that had gone through the same thing. However, it's not explained to the viewer which most psuedo-horror fans won't like because they lack the imagination to figure out for themselves what was happening.
There was also a mention of why they couldn't just take their car, they didn't have it. At the very beginning, when they are driving up, there was a large tree limb across the road so they couldn't drive any farther. They decided to go ahead and unload and walk the rest of the way, planning to come back for it later, but when Mike and Eli went to move it later on is when they discovered the boundary. Sam had gone first, while she was trying to get a signal, then suddenly ended up in the attic. Then when Eli and Mike went to move the car, Mike came running back screaming because Eli disappeared, only for him it also re-emerge into the attic. They couldn't get back to their car since it was on the other side of the boundary.
Keep in mind, this was done with a minuscule budget of $45,000. It relied on the psychological aspects rather than bog it down with CGI and special effects. For a low-budget horror movie, this was a pretty good one. I would definitely recommend it, as long as you know it's not going to explain everything to you and you have to use your own imagination and intelligence to really appreciate it.
Found this while browsing through Amazon and thought the premise seemed like a good one. I really enjoyed it, I'm not sure why it's getting so much hate. No, this is not your typical horror/slasher movie with a crazed maniac terrorizing a group of friends. Instead, this is a slow-burn psychological horror that gets inside your head.
The cast is basically a bunch of beginners that don't have much experience, but the most of the conversations seem somewhat natural and how a group of friends would talk to each other. We see each one's descent into a sort of madness that is different for all of them. The kills aren't explicit or gory and bloody, which I think is a turn off for a lot of horror fans who enjoy those types of kills. However, the way they were done was effective. The first one with the axe showed just enough of the guys skull and the blood splatter that you knew what happened without being overly gory. Another great one was when Rachel stabbed Eli because he wouldn't take the sleeping pills. It is shown in an almost dream-like way, with the repeated stabbing/ Rachel saying "Take the pills" this really shows you the headspace Rachel was in at the time. She even says she hadn't slept in a long time up to that point, and it had driven her insane.
Someone mentioned the cinematography and how the movie was filmed. It does seem bizarre when it starts, but it also gives you a sense of their isolation along with how much time has passed. Since there is nothing that says how long they have been there, but at the beginning when they realize they are trapped, they talk about how they don't have enough supplies/toiletries to last very long. When they first get there and they have plenty and you see the full toothpaste tube and toilet paper, then subsequent shots show less and less as more and more time passes. It was sort a cool way to show how long they had been there without actually saying it. This was especially effective with relating to the characters because they didn't really know either. Also, the shots of nature and the trees showed you how isolated they were as well. At one point after they began to figure out they couldn't leave, the camera pulls out from the house to the tops of the trees to give a sense of that isolation as they are deep in the woods. I know many people didn't like the ending because they didn't explain it to you and wrap everything up with a neat little bow. YOU have figure out what was going on and why they were there and being kept there. Obviously someone owns the house and knew what was happening there, at one point Sam finds a bunch of pictures of other guests along with maps of the boundary similar to the one they had made meaning there had others there before that had gone through the same thing. However, it's not explained to the viewer which most psuedo-horror fans won't like because they lack the imagination to figure out for themselves what was happening.
There was also a mention of why they couldn't just take their car, they didn't have it. At the very beginning, when they are driving up, there was a large tree limb across the road so they couldn't drive any farther. They decided to go ahead and unload and walk the rest of the way, planning to come back for it later, but when Mike and Eli went to move it later on is when they discovered the boundary. Sam had gone first, while she was trying to get a signal, then suddenly ended up in the attic. Then when Eli and Mike went to move the car, Mike came running back screaming because Eli disappeared, only for him it also re-emerge into the attic. They couldn't get back to their car since it was on the other side of the boundary.
Keep in mind, this was done with a minuscule budget of $45,000. It relied on the psychological aspects rather than bog it down with CGI and special effects. For a low-budget horror movie, this was a pretty good one. I would definitely recommend it, as long as you know it's not going to explain everything to you and you have to use your own imagination and intelligence to really appreciate it.
