Cold, empty snowbound non-horror.
Written, edited, starring and directed by Coltan Tran in only his third all time feature length film from the director’s chair, he joins a cast of only nine other credited roles of which five have a major screen presence in a film shot over a six day period but which sadly results in a sum total of zero entertainment or for that matter, horror.
Whilst there isn’t any horror, scares or tension of any discernible description, what remains is another pandemic influenced story of a group of five friends thrown together for an extended period of time, locked in and locked down against the biting cold of a New Year’s Eve that spills long into the following new year. With the power out and the rations dwindling as low as the morale amongst the young gang of friends, thoughts turn to the “virus” outside of their cabin in the snowy woods as well as the mass psychosis and group hysteria building a maddening fever inside the cabin. Illness and sickness is rife even before the lights go out, heartbreak and loneliness too, before the onset of sleep deprivation and hallucinations and believe me, when one of our locked down crew begins to vomit snow (yes you have read that correctly!), you too will be wanting to “get away from you people”, and as quickly as you can.
For a lifelong fan of film and a man not known for his brevity when it comes to film reviews, this is a first for me as this film is dreadful and best avoided.
Alas.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
“Skinamarink” (2022)
Hide and Seek in an upside down house of horrors.medium.com
“Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Worth every minute. Across every universe.medium.com
“65” (2023)
Superlative familial tale. With added dinosaurs.medium.com