A teenage girl’s mother goes missing for a few days. This is not the first time this has happened, and it is not entirely unexpected by the family; the girl mother has a history of mental health issues. But when the girl’s mother does turn up, alive and well, the girl, Cher, suspects that all is not as it seems. Cher’s mother starts acting strangely. Cher’s mother starts to undergo physical changes. When Cher’s grandmother reveals the truth, it might be already too late for our young protagonist.
A thinly veiled discourse on mental health issues affecting so many families or a simple exercise in gut-wrenching suspense? It doesn’t really matter what was intended as fans of paranoid movies that exploit our worst fears about those surrounding us will lap up this genuinely eerie tale.
Brilliant direction and committed performances combine to slowly create an atmosphere of crawling dread. The sense of claustrophobia is excruciatingly palpable with moments reminiscent of the slow-burn approach taken by movies like It Follows and even The Blair Witch Project with its focus on relationship dynamics as much as spooky goings on.
Where some may find the movie lacking is in its conclusion. The narrative maintains a deliberately ambiguous tone all the way through and the lack of a more traditional monster-movie style climax that spells everything out with a welter of effects might be seen as disappointingly frustrating or the icing on the cake depending on your point of view.
On the upside, it ensures a considered and subtle viewing experience a change of pace from this viewer’s usual blood and guts low-budget encounters. On the downside, the lack of any outpouring of explicit horror did leave me wanting for a little more. Still, as movie steeped in a close, choking atmosphere, it hasn’t been recently bettered. Recommended, if you are in a spooky mood for something spookily different.
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