Tag: n

Night of the Hunted

  By

★½
“The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”

It has got to the point where ‘A Shudder Original’ has become more a threat than a promise. I was hoping for much more from Khalfoun, who gave us the brilliant Maniac remake. However, here he is hogtied by a terrible script, more interested in providing left-wing political messaging than  entertainment – the very definition of “woke”. At one point, the heroine actually says, “My whole life has been about pleasing men.” Seems like a you problem, honey. But it sums up the tone of this whole misbegotten endeavour. Though to be fair, watching this a week before the Presidential election didn’t help: I reached my annual quota of smug bullshit months ago.

The missteps begin almost immediately, when we’re introduced to pharmaceutical executive Alice (Rowe), who is about to leave a convention, being clumsily reminded by her husband at home that she has a fertility appointment. Seconds later, we discover she’s having an affair with co-worker John (Scippio). “What a great way to get our empathy!” said no audience, ever. On the way home, they pull into a gas-station only to find it’s the bullseye for a sniper (Stanic), who has already killed the sole overnight employee. He’s operating from a nearby billboard (top) which, in one of the film’s few interesting moments, can be read in two, diametrically opposite ways. Paul is quickly dispatched leaving Alice alone, except for a walkie-talkie through which she communicates with the active shooter.

Turns out, he has a laundry list of grudges, with his lines apparently created by a Twitter-scraping bot, or possibly an AI told to parody right-wing talk radio. I certainly can’t believe it took four human writers to come up with this garbage. It’s exactly the kind of scenario where the killer doesn’t need a reason, and all the efforts to give him one backfire completely. Compare and contrast the more effective Downrange, and you’ll see what I mean. It may have had its flaws, going too far into enigmatic. It’s still preferable to having the killer self-identify as “The right-wing nut, the conspiracy theorist, stop the lie, storm the Capitol,  election fraud, domestic terrorist, anti-vaxxer, anti-this, anti-that.” You’ll be forgiven for mentally tuning out mid-sentence.

Things only get worse thereafter. For naturally, the shooter idiotically ends up leaving his position of strength, and wandering around inside the gas station. This is so he can drop vague hints as to the specific nature of his motivation (which seems curiously focused on Alice), but more importantly, allows the heroine to battle him hand-to-hand. Do not expect either of these aspects to approach remotely satisfying, and my reaction when the end credits rolled was “That’s it? Really?” Of all the reasons I watch genre movies, getting political lectures from Frenchmen is pretty far down the list. This has pissed away all of Khalfoun’s goodwill, and a good chunk of that for producer Alexandre Aja too. As for Shudder? I will not be subscribing.

Dir: Franck Khalfoun
Star: Camille Rowe, Stasa Stanic, Jeremy Scippio, J. John Bieler
[A version of this review previously appeared on Film Blitz]

Natassa

  By

★★½
“A blonde, not having more fun.”

I am reluctant to be overly harsh on this one, because I suspect I didn’t get to see this in its best format. The fact it feels very choppy and disjointed could potentially be a result of the IMDb giving this a running time of 136 minutes, but the only print available ran a good half-hour less. It was also dubbed from Greek into English and pan-and-scanned. Pretty much the holy trinity of cinematic suckage, right there. It’s the story of Natassa Arseni (Vougiouklaki), who lives in Greece when the Nazis invade during World War II. She’s initially largely unconcerned, but gradually becomes involved in the local resistance.

There are two men in her life. A former college friend, Max (Karras), followed his father’s German heritage, and is now a member of the occupying forces, who has feelings for Natassa. Her affections are elsewhere, haven fallen in love at first sight with Orestis (Papamichael), a partisan dedicated to ridding his home country of the occupying forces. She marries him and throws her lot in with the resistance, but is captured by the Nazis, and tortured for information. Except, this was a cold-blooded decision to sacrifice them, in order to provide false information to Germany about the location of a future Allied invasion. Orestis escapes capture, and hatches a daring plan to disguise himself and his men as the Nazi firing squad sent to execute Natassa. Fate, however, has other plans.

There are some good ideas here. The character of Max, with a foot in both camps is an interesting one, and I liked how there are biggest issues at play, requiring sacrifices – unwittingly, admittedly – from those on the front lines. Some scenes are very effective. The wedding of Orestis and Natassa, where they are ambushed on the way to the church, and she pushes through with the ceremony despite being shot, would be one. Then again, I’m a sucker for a bloodstained wedding dress. Vougiouklaki is strikingly blonde, and rather unGreek. However – again, perhaps due to the editing down to the most dramatic scenes, or maybe the dubbing – it feels as if she has her acting permanently set at a level of “11”, occasionally toppling over into overacting.

There are points where this is justified: I mean, you’re being interrogated and tortured (even if Max points out, “I’m not in the Gestapo, I’m in the SS” – not sure that makes much difference…), a little hysteria would seem fair enough. But when it seems most scenes are played out like that, it reduces the impact when it’s needed most. There are also moments which dangle awkwardly, such as the opening, where a post-war Natassa visits Dachau, or when she’s a singer, bursting into(presumably patriotic?) song when the Nazis show up. That feels like a knock-off of the Marseillaise bit from Casablanca. I don’t recall the heroine wielding an automatic weapon at any point, as the poster suggests, either. I’ve read that this was the biggest-grossing local movie in Greece for years after its release. Needs a remake, I’d say. 

Dir: Nikos Foskolos
Star: Aliki Vougiouklaki, Dimitris Papamichael, Kostas Karras, Kakia Panagiotou
a.k.a. Lieutenant Natassja or Battlefield Constantinople

Notebook Mysteries ~ Emma, by Kimberly Mullins

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

This begins with the Great Chicago Fire, an 1871 conflagration which killed around three hundred people. One of those is the mother of Emma Evans, and ten years later she’s a bright, inquisitive 16-year-old. She works part-time in the family bakery her mother previously ran, and also helps our her civil engineer father, but is also learning more… unusual skills, such as escapology and self-defense. These come in handy, as when she’s out carrying out deliveries with her friends Tony and Tim, Emma’s observational skills allow her to notice suspicious behaviour. When she has gathered enough evidence, she can then pass matters on to the appropriate authorities.

However, these activities don’t exactly win her friends in the criminal underworld, and she gradually discovers that her mother’s death might not have been the terrible accident it appeared to be. There’s also the matter of an unknown person who is clearly keeping a very close eye on Emma’s daily activities. Are they doing so for good or evil? All is eventually revealed – though oddly, after what feels very much like it should have been the climax, the book then meanders on with another investigation for another half-hour. Truly anti-climactic, literally. Mind you, I was still coming to terms with the facile ease Emma kills someone during that confrontation. While arguably justified, she does not seem particularly bothered about it afterward.

The historical setting, nineteenth century Chicago, was a fresh one, and this was quite evocatively handled [though I’m disappointed my Kindle copy didn’t contain the baking recipes other reviews indicate were present! I checked. Twice.]. There are some elements which feel like they don’t quite fit with society of that time: everyone seems remarkably chill with Emma learning how to throw knives like a circus performer, and going out with one strapped to her leg. Formal education also seems notable by its absence, despite Emma being smart and from a middle-class background. It does feel a little “young adult”-ish, perhaps aimed even at an early teen crowd. Which is interesting, because later books in the series definitely have Emma all grown-up. I wonder if the language matures with her.

It all feels a fraction too sanitized for my tastes, with only an occasional suggestion of actual peril for her heroine, despite her poking her nose into some potentially dangerous locations. The main antagonist is… Well, there isn’t really one specifically, it’s more of a nebulous concept of “organized crime in Victorian Chicago.” There were some twists I didn’t see coming, and appreciate the way that not everyone was as good, or bad, as they initially appeared – our heroine’s skills at observation definitely don’t extend to reading people’s intentions! While I didn’t dislike this, there were not sufficient positives for it to come close to interesting me in further installments. It’s very much a one and done.

Author: Kimberly Mullins
Publisher: JKJ Books, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 7 in the Notebook Mysteries series.

Nite Fire: Flash Point by C.L. Schneider

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Dallas Nite is a dragon. Well, some of the time. For dragons are actually shape-shifters, capable of changing form, and that’s how she is able to pass for a human here. On her home planet, she had been an assassin for Queen Naalish, until she balked at carrying out one hit. Condemned to death, she fled through one of the interplanetary portals, ending up on Earth. Effectively immortal, Dallas has been in exile here for ninety-seven years since, making sure no other unauthorized creatures come through the portals – part of an uneasy truce between her and the aristocracy. Part of her job also involves ensuring any trace of dragon activity is covered up, these being explained instead as “spontaneous human combustion.” But after a whole family is slaughtered in fiery fashion in their home, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to keep a lid on things, and her past comes back with a vengeance too.

As urban fantasy goes, this is solid, rather than spectacular. There’s some nice world-building, with the idea of the portals well-explained, and offering plenty of scope for a variety of adventures (the epilogue does a particularly good job of pointing the way forward). I also appreciated how Dallas is employed as an investigator of “suspicious fires” by the local police department in Sentinel City which, given the obvious dragonish nature of her talents, is a good fit. Additionally, she has the ability to sense and re-experience people’s traumas. While the talent comes with baggage of its own, this is particularly useful for the case in question. It does feel like you’re joining the story in progress, almost a century having passed since Dallas’s arrival on Earth. I would be very interested in hearing, for example, what she got up to during World War II. A were-dragon would seem to offer certain advantages as a secret agent.

While the more relevant gaps of her past are filled in eventually, it is a bit of a cheat, with knowledge being withheld from the audience, that Dallas and the other characters clearly possess. We probably needed additional background on the dragon hierarchy too. There were some characters whose roles and significance remained a little too obscure. For example, Reech is one who only shows up at the half-way point, and I am still not sure exactly how he fits into things. What ends up as the central conflict, between Dallas and former apprentice Brynne, delivers some impressive battles (I said effectively immortal above, for a reason…), and focusing more directly on that could have paid dividends. At almost four hundred pages in length, there were times where getting through this did feel a bit of slog. However, a turn of the page would then bring me into something cool, and it provided enough of those moments to cross over the finish line without too much trouble. 

Author: C.L. Schneider
Publisher: CreateSpace Indepenedent Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 5 in the Nite Fire series.

Ninja: Prophecy of Death

  By

½
“I know ninjas are supposed to be silent, but…”

To a certain degree, this should be graded as “incomplete”. Easiest to quote the IMDb on the reason why. “This film was to be shelved by director Kabasinski, when post-production had a lengthy delay and he went on to produce the film Skull Forest. Very happy with the improvements in overall production value of Skull Forest, Kabasinski was going to just take this film as a ‘loss’ having already moved forward. It was not until an editor from Buffalo, NY stepped in and expressed desire in taking on the project. Feeling indebted to the cast and crew for the film and post-production going better then expected, Kabasinski decided on releasing the film.”

He shouldn’t have bothered. Because it does the Kabasinski brand-name irreparable damage, due to its terrible quality, in one aspect especially. If this had been fixed, it still wouldn’t have been great – it would remain cheap and amateur. But it would not be in the conversation for worst action heroine movie of all-time, as is the case based on what was eventually released. The story is about an assassin, known only as “The Lost One” (Porada), who is part of a sect of ninjas. On a mission, she balks when she is ordered to kidnap a child. This mutiny is not taken well, and she is left for dead by her colleagues. Naturally, she isn’t, and teams up with some Mafia hitmen (Anthony and Poffo) to get her revenge. 

It’s a basic plot, yet not unworkable, especially when delivered with the director’s enthusiastic fondness for gratuitous nudity and gloopy violence. The low budget doesn’t really matter when you are talking nekkid ninja training. But what irredeemably sinks the movie, and why it should have remained lost (or, at best, a bonus feature on another movie) is the audio. Regular readers will know this is a common complaint I have with smaller productions,  and it’s a personal peeve. I don’t use words like “worst ever” lightly either. So you will understand how much of an issue it is that – bold font, please – this is the worst ever audio I have heard on a released film, bar none.

Seriously, the audio is entirely missing for about half the scenes. No music, no background sounds, nothing. This includes the entire opening credits, which feature Mrs. Kabasinski doing more nude sword work. It almost becomes some bizarre form of art statement, like a throwback to the silent era. Even when it’s present, it is poorly mixed and the dialogue sometimes inaudible. It would probably have worked significantly better had Kabasinski nuked all the audio, turned it b&w, added some intertitles to tell us the plot, and thrown ninety minutes of public domain orchestral music onto it. Instead, what you have is a feature-length demonstration about the importance of the auditory portion to cinema. As well as how worthless a movie can be, when the makers simply cannot be bothered to deliver the materials. 

Dir: Len Kabasinski
Star: Renee Porada, Brian Anthony, Lanny Poffo, Darian Caine

Night Raiders

  By

★★½
“Night of the Living Deads”

This rather gloomy slice of social science-fiction seems to take place in a post-apocalyptic version of Canada, albeit a fairly low-key apocalypse. It seems to have led to a rigidly class-based system, with a sharp division between “citizens” and the rest. That leaves the indigenous population on the outside, scrabbling hard to survive and avoid having their kids “re-educated” in military-style academies. [This pointedly echoes something similar which actually took place as recently as the sixties] To avoid being separated, Niska (Tailfeathers) and her daughter Waseese (Letexier-Hart) live off the grid in the countryside. However, after Waseese suffers an accident, they have to seek medical attention back in the city, bringing them to the attention of the authorities.

This ends in Waseese being taken away, and Niska forming a rather uneasy alliance with a local group of native Canadians, who are operating in resistance to the authorities. They have their own encampment, and one of their shamen (shawomen, I guess) had a dream which appears to be a prophecy about a saviour coming from the North. Which seems to fit Niska, much to her discomfort. She reluctantly agrees to help take a group of indigenous children to a supposed “safe haven”, if the group assists her in breaking Waseese out of the academy. Though will her daughter be willing to leave after the relentless brainwashing, telling Waseese her mother abandoned her? Then there’s the imminently looming removal – or worse – of the encampment.

It’s all very earnest, glum and comes up rather short as entertainment. I’m sure the film-makers would respond that entertainment isn’t the point, but if you’re using your movie as a parable, it helps get the message across if people are engaged. We’ve seen this kind of crypto-fascist villain state too often before (most obviously in The Hunger Games), and writer-director Goulet doesn’t bring much new to the table. As bad guys, they’re fairly milquetoast. Indeed, when someone says “Cree can’t take care of their own families”, I was kinda forced to think, “You might have a point,” given Waseese was tramping round the woods and living in an abandoned school bus when we first meet her. A call to CPS hardly seems unmerited.

The best thing about this is the look of the film, which does a very good job capturing the fall of civilization as we know it. While it’s never clear exactly what happened to cause this, what’s left is largely a blasted wasteland of badly-damaged buildings, whose inhabitants are clinging on by their fingertips. However, few of the characters living in this setting are given much in the way of depth, and the plot does things like throw in a virus epidemic which goes nowhere, because it’s 2021 and every self-respecting dystopia needs one. The finale teeters over into the fatuous, with Waseese suddenly being able to mind-control a flock of flying government drones. I’ll admit, I did not see that coming.

Dir: Danis Goulet
Star: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Brooklyn Letexier-Hart, Alex Tarrant, Amanda Plummer

Nowhere

  By

★★★
“Survival of the fittest.”

One of the shows we enjoy watching here is Alone, in which ten contestants are dropped off in a hostile location – typically chilly – with limited resources. The last one left standing wins $500,000. It’s a simple concept, yet endlessly fascinating. We sit on our comfortable couch, eating Doritos and passing comment on the failing of the competitors. Especially so when they are hoist by their own stupidity, such as losing their means of starting a fire. This feels not dissimilar, except rather than a survival expert, it’s a woman who finds herself thrown into utterly inhospitable circumstances, and forced to make do by any means necessary – not just for her own survival, but that of her new-born child.

The woman is the heavily pregnant Mia (Castillo), who is fleeing an uncertain present in Spain, hoping to get to Ireland, with her husband Nico (Novas). The route is supposed to involve them being sent in shipping containers along with other refugees, but almost from the off, things go wrong. Mia is separated from Nico; the rest of the occupants are gunned down; and then, just when Mia is on her way, the container is washed off the ship in a storm, leaving her afloat in the middle of the ocean. It’s leaking badly – bullet holes will do this – and even after she has addressed that immediate problem, she has to figure out how to survive, with only the contents of the container. Oh, and then she gives birth.

It is, of course, a very contrived set of circumstances, with the container offering a variety of potentially useful items, rather than being, say, entirely full of agricultural machinery. Similarly, her cell-phone has remarkable battery life and service coverage, though I have read a suggestion the calls she received were actually hallucinations. That might be a shame, as one of them certainly represents the film’s dramatic peak, an utterly heart-rending conversation. It was the point where I suddenly realized I had become invested in Mia’s fate, and cared. It came as a bit of a surprise, and is testament to a good performance from Castillo. Not least because for much of the time, she has nobody to act against except a new-born baby.

The scripting is less effective. As well as the convenience mentioned, the whole opening half-hour proves almost irrelevant. It sets up a scenario where resources have become so short, the government is killing off unproductive members of its own society. Let’s just say: I have questions, yet it serves no purpose in the movie, except to get Mia into her crate. Things improve once it does, and the film becomes a straight survival story, rather than trying to make (I presume) some kind of social point about… something. Not that this stopped me from sitting on my comfortable couch, eating Doritos and passing comment on Mia’s attempts to fish. If only she’d watched Alone, she’d have managed much better…

Dir: Albert Pintó
Star: Anna Castillo, Tamar Novas, Tony Corvillo, Mariam Torres

No Way to Escape

  By

★★★
“Just deserts.”

This is a sprightly and energetic Chinese knock-off, borrowing heavily from Resident Evil and Aliens in particular. There’s a research lab deep underground, in the middle of the Gobi Desert, which has suddenly gone radio silent. The research they were doing there was… well, I’m not 100% certain quite what it involved. While a lot of the dialogue in this is in “English”, I’m using quotes advisedly. Especially on the scientific front, it seems to be more of an enthusiastic word-salad, like “by chance, precise data from the gamma variable appear,” throwing jargon about radiation and DNA splicing into the mix, in lieu of anything coherent. Anyway, it seems Ohm Technology are into some fairly shady shit, to nobody’s surprise.

A group is sent out to find out what happened, and more importantly, bring everything back on line. The only man who can do it, apparently, is Doctor Haven, a kinda autistic super-scientist, who’d like to get his hands on the data. To protect him, three Lara Croft-alikes are assigned: leader Bai Zhi (Yu), the flirty Bi Jiao (Wu); and veteran Gui Che (Xu). Also coming along are a bunch of cannon fodder, and leader of the mission, Principal Gabon (Ger), who is clearly evil because he’s played by a Westerner. They haven’t even reached the base before they encounter the local fauna: scorpions that can swim through human flesh like water. So if you stand on one, it’ll pop out the top of your head.

These are, at least, only normal sized. But when the expeditions enters into the base, the women are appalled to discover this isn’t the rescue mission intended, with any survivors being ruthlessly gunned-down by Gabon’s men. [Those foreign devils…] Turns out he intends to seize the technology and use it for nefarious purposes, but not everyone is in favor of this. The heroic trio rebel, Dr. Haven refuses to get the systems running again, and even some of his own men decide they can’t in good conscience take part in Gabon’s plan. All of which would be merely morally interesting, if it weren’t for the F-sized version of the scorpions roaming the facility due to leakage of gamma rays. Or something.

You’d be hard-pushed to identify anything new or particularly innovative here. But it keeps moving, without significant downtime, and there’s enough background to make it feel more than you’re just watching a video-game. For instance, Bai Zhi is there partly to look for her fiance, who worked at the base before he suddenly vanished. There’s also a lot more interaction between the characters and the monsters than we usually see in this kind of thing. Though the quality of the combination FX is uneven, and the editing of the action is sometimes choppily incoherent. No great matter. This is a film pitting soldiers against freakin’ giant scorpions, and firmly checks the boxes of what you would want and expect from such a production. 

Dir: Yun-Fei Lu
Star: Sai-Chu Yu, You-Xuan Wu, Dong-Mei Xu, Dieter Ger

This review originally appeared on Film Blitz.

Night Train

  By

★★
“Not trucking good.”

Danielle Ryan’s quest for a movie worthy of her talents meets another swing and a miss. I guess you have to give credit to this one: it is at least trying to go in a different direction, making the Mexican cartel the good guys. For as well as their… less salubrious activities, they’re shipping pharmaceuticals into the US, and undercutting Big Pharma, by selling them to the needy at lower prices. #SoBrave Needless to say, this can’t stand, so word comes down to FBI supervisor Connoll (Sergei), who puts agent Jaylynne Jackson (Baird) on the case. Except, you wonder how much he wants to help, since she is an alcoholic burnout, with PTSD resulting from her stint in the military.

The target is Holly McCord (Ryan), who might also be a vet – to be honest, my attention kinda lapsed. She is trucking the imported drugs to the distribution hub in Las Vegas, using her souped-up vehicle. But only because it gives her access to the medicine her sick son needs. Her contact, Renzo Romeo (Haapaniemi) was initially unconvinced, but McCord’s ability to get the job done showed him she isn’t just a girl – a point the film practically belabours. That, however, can’t stop Holly from getting ensnared deeper in the crime web, as Jaylynne closes in, both ends threatening to destroy everything Holly cares about. Which is basically her son, so she decides to make a break for the border with him and Renzo.

I’ll take misleading posters for $400, please, Alex. I am fairly sure – despite the attention thing mentioned above – that Holly never picks up a gun at any point, even during the final face-off with Jaylynne. Indeed, in terms of action, this is considerably more subdued than you’d expect. I was thinking there would at least be some hot car chases here, and the movie largely fails to deliver on that front either. It’s more of a thriller than an action film, and doesn’t work particularly well as that. If it had kept to the battle between noble criminal and ignoble cop, it might have worked, since both characters are interesting – even if Jaylynne would, in reality, have been tossed out of the FBI.

However, the film throws too much extraneous stuff in there which is either not needed, or plain bad writing. I mean, if you have to use a sick child as maternal motivation, that’s simply lazy. We also get Holly’s relationship with her father, Jaylynne’s PTSD, the creepy attraction the Las Vegas head has for Holly, etc. etc. When the two women finally meet in the desert, the battle-hardened FBI agent ends up falling to her knees and weeping, then letting Holly go, after a stern lecture from the smuggler. No, really. The words,”Who writes this crap?” may have passed my lips at that point. Some day, Ryan (and, indeed, Baird) will hopefully find a script that matches her abilities. Today is not that day.

Dir: Shane Stanley
Star: Danielle C. Ryan, Diora Baird, Paul Haapaniemi, Ivan Sergei

Nemesis

  By

★★½
“Two’s company, Tree’s a crowd.”

I was going to go with “Tree’s company” as the tagline, before I realized I’ve actually used that in three separate, forest-set movies. So I decided to adjust it slightly, and what’s above is indeed very apt. There is a cast of three (3) and the entire thing unfolds in the woods. There isn’t a single set or interior shot in the whole film. Indeed, if you’d asked me, I’d have said this had all the hallmarks of a COVID-era project, designed to be shot with a small cast and in a nicely sanitary, outdoor location. Not so, even though Tubi dates it as 2020. There was a screening in April 2019, well before anyone had heard of Wuhan, and the IMDb gives it a year of 2017.

McKenzie Montero (Villegas) is a bounty hunter transporting a fugitive she has captured back to civilization. Her car is involved in an crash, and her captive, murderer Noah Burnham (Wilder), escapes into the expanse of woods by the road. McKenzie goes in pursuit, but ends up having to babysit the driver of the other car, Abigail Stroud (Slattery), who professes to be concerned about McKenzie’s health after the accident. Except, almost none of the preceding statements are 100% accurate. In particular, we learn that Abigail is actually an accomplice of Noah – albeit somewhat reluctantly – and her motives obviously do not line up with those of her new friend. McKenzie, meanwhile, is desperate to get the reward Noah represents, and will not let anyone get in the way.

Given the constraints under which its operating, this is not a terrible time-passer. However, I can’t say that the various twists ever came as quite the shock the writer seemed to think. It felt obvious from the start that Abigail was not the innocent driver she claimed to be, and the way the relationship between her and McKenzie went from zero to BFFs, confiding secrets, seemed a tad forced. On the other hand, I’d like to have learned more about some elements, such as Noah’s claim to be an officially sanctioned serial killer, working for the US government. As is, this seems inserted as a rather crude way to leave the viewer uncertain of who the “good guy/gal” is, given McKenzie is not exactly law-enforcement herself.

As such, you will soon realize there are no real heroes here, with each of the trio clearly intent on manipulating the other two, to their respective ends. For instance, Abigail and Noah need McKenzie, because she’s the only one who can get them out of the woods. Watching this mental chess game unfold, in between bouts of adequately-staged physical confrontation, is when the movie is at its most entertaining. I was never sure until the very end who was going to be able to walk away by the time everything was decided. The problem was, though, that when the final credits rolled, I realized that I did not particularly care about anybody’s fate either.

Dir: Carl Joglar
Star: Colleen Slattery, Sarah Villegas, Nicholas Wilder