June 1, 2022
Kate (Lora Burke) was trying her best to make her daughter Beth (Tessa Kozma) happy on her ninth birthday. However, Beth was being testy and moody, as she missed her father Brad who had been sent to jail for the brutal murder of a neighborhood girl. Apparently it had been Kate who turned him in to the police.
Later that night, a couple of intruders broke into the house and held Kate and Beth captive. They turned out to be Mary and Lewis (Kristen MacCulloch and Nick Smyth), the parents of the murdered little girl. They were out to exact their revenge on Kate, whom they believed to be responsible for the crime all along.
You knew from the start that this was going to be one tense cinematic ride. The opening scene had a girl sitting on the living room couch with her birthday cake in front of her, but looiming in the foreground was the mom with a scary-looking knife in her hand. From that first scene alone, we already feel the abnormal relationship of mother and daughter which was going to be further explored for the rest of the film.
Every character, especially Kate and even Beth, was flawed and unlikable, so you would not know who to trust. There were two families broken by the tragic events and both mothers were doing these things all for the love of their daughters. Most of the scenes were set in the bare claustrophobic house and its barn. The only time the camera left the house was when it followed witness-protection police officer Hal (Colin Paradine) in his car.
There was a constant feeling of dread that hung over every scene and every character. Director Craig David Wallace kept scenes stark and simple, just two characters on the screen most of the time, with the suspense sustained by the lighting, sound effects and the eerie musical score. He was able to keep us guessing and second-guessing throughout as more of the story unfolded twist after twist. 7/10.
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