★★★
“The plot that got away.”
This isn’t the first movie I’ve seen, in which a woman escapes apparent death at the hands of a serial killer, only for them to track her down years later. However, the twist in the narrative here, which perhaps pushed it over the necessary boundary for inclusion on the site, is that the killer is also female. The victim is Christina Bowden (Johnson), who as a young girl was the sole survivor of Elizabeth Caulfield (Tuckerman) and her “child farm”, for want of a better phrase. Bowden has slowly put her life back together and is now a school teacher. She’s also looking to adopt another troubled teen, Lisa Spencer (McCarthy), and pay it forward. Then she gets a visit from local sheriff Jamie Nwosu (Iwuji).
For Caulfield has escaped during a transfer, and may be heading to finish what she started. Jamie does what he can to offer protection, but the stress is clearly taking an increasing toll on Christina and her psyche. Her relationship with Lisa disintegrates ad she tries to keep her in the dark about her own past. Then dead bodies start to pile up. At first, it seems Caulfield is the obvious suspect, until the victims become people about whom she wouldn’t even know about, let alone have any reason to kill… If you are anything like me, you’re perhaps a bit ahead of the story, and there are some elements where you wonder why everyone is so slow to put the pieces together.
To the film’s credit it doesn’t stretch these aspects excessively. On the other hand, I still have questions about a number of the developments in the final act, some of which had me muttering “Hang on a moment…” under my breath. I’m prepared to cut it a certain bit of slack, for what had been a slow burn to that point, suddenly turned on the nitrous, and went fairly intense grand guignol. It’s a trade-off I’m usually prepared to make. It does help balance a movie that does feel overlong at 116 minutes, with elements in the early going, that never come to any particular fruition. I’d rather have seen more of Caulfield, who is backgrounded too far to be a truly effective horror threat.
That may at least be somewhat deliberate, as this isn’t exactly the horror movie implied by the poster. It’s perhaps more of a psychological drama, with thriller components. Regardless of genre or marketing, the performances are generally solid though. Johnson does an effective job of playing someone with a rough past, whose future suddenly does not look all that bright either. Over the course of proceedings, it’s certainly one hell of a character arc, and the audience are more or less compelled to go along with her, willingly or not. I can’t say it’s entirely successful as an entity, yet there are moments here that are effective enough. It may have been almost two hours, yet I didn’t feel they were entirely wasted.
Dir: Michael Morrissey
Star: Lexi Johnson, Chukwudi Iwuji, Willow McCarthy, Kaye Tuckerman