Getting stranded at a remote, vacant hotel in the woods, two couples find themselves beset by a deranged killer who forces them to confront their inner-most demons buried within them in order to get out alive.
This is an overall quite troubling effort as this really could've been something quite decent but is too heavily flawed to rise above. The biggest issue here is that this one is just way too overall clichéd and familiar to scores of other films where people find themselves trapped at a house or shack in the middle of nowhere that's not what it initially seems at all, and that familiarity makes for this one to simply run through the motions of hitting every single general plot-point without fail. There's the initial meeting with the family that shows them off as general creeps, the scramble throughout the house to secure weapons once the killer arrives and then the play-out with each one forced to confront something troubling from their past which is the main genesis of the film rather than the killers' stalking scenes which are quite problematic since this really only makes a specific point within the film come to pass. If none of these actions that are presented as the most horrific memories and events in their lifetime mean nothing or are not that scary at all, then the film as a whole is just utterly bland and boring during these sequences which is what's presented here. Only one of these events is really all that terrifying and worthy of being that kind of unrelenting psychological torment yet even that is dutifully hindered by the film's Christian morality that comes into play in the final half which is just so problematic that there's almost nothing at all to praise in these scenes. It's all so bland and boring that there's almost a negative impact taken here from the few scares that do occur here which is what's the most troubling part of all this. Those middle scares, especially the frantic search around the house to locate weapons that soon turns into the different torments that are undertaken which comes out of nowhere as this was set-up quite nicely with the human killer in a dark, decrepit house, yet there's a lot to like with these scenes that gets taken away by the unneeded Christian morality that utterly destroys a lot of that.
Rated R: Language, Violence and themes of child molestation.
This is an overall quite troubling effort as this really could've been something quite decent but is too heavily flawed to rise above. The biggest issue here is that this one is just way too overall clichéd and familiar to scores of other films where people find themselves trapped at a house or shack in the middle of nowhere that's not what it initially seems at all, and that familiarity makes for this one to simply run through the motions of hitting every single general plot-point without fail. There's the initial meeting with the family that shows them off as general creeps, the scramble throughout the house to secure weapons once the killer arrives and then the play-out with each one forced to confront something troubling from their past which is the main genesis of the film rather than the killers' stalking scenes which are quite problematic since this really only makes a specific point within the film come to pass. If none of these actions that are presented as the most horrific memories and events in their lifetime mean nothing or are not that scary at all, then the film as a whole is just utterly bland and boring during these sequences which is what's presented here. Only one of these events is really all that terrifying and worthy of being that kind of unrelenting psychological torment yet even that is dutifully hindered by the film's Christian morality that comes into play in the final half which is just so problematic that there's almost nothing at all to praise in these scenes. It's all so bland and boring that there's almost a negative impact taken here from the few scares that do occur here which is what's the most troubling part of all this. Those middle scares, especially the frantic search around the house to locate weapons that soon turns into the different torments that are undertaken which comes out of nowhere as this was set-up quite nicely with the human killer in a dark, decrepit house, yet there's a lot to like with these scenes that gets taken away by the unneeded Christian morality that utterly destroys a lot of that.
Rated R: Language, Violence and themes of child molestation.