What is the plot?
Norval Greenwood has had little contact with his father, it has been many years since he was a child. But Norval has received a letter from his father, asking him to visit him in a house by the beach, surrounded by a forest. When he arrives at the house, his father behaves strangely, is drunk all day, and doesn't tell his son why he asked him to visit. The coexistence gets worse every day, until something happens that changes the course of this story...

I was seconds away from stopping the movie playback and going to sleep... fortunately it was at the precise moment I was thinking of pressing "Pause" that the plot twist occurred.

This black comedy, deceives the viewer during the first minutes. For a moment we thought it would be a horror story with ghosts, but when the big twist occurs, the story goes crazy, it accelerates and violence and gore are present, accompanied by hilariously absurd situations.

The beginning is good, the interaction between the characters of father and son has its moments, with that feeling that something is not right in the story. The characters that appear later, the policeman and the coroner, are also picturesque. But it was Norval's lonely sequence, when he drinks his father's wine, that slows down the plot and seems to go through the typical haunted house.

If you feel bored during that part of the film, wait a few minutes, what comes next is worth it. The story takes another path, with the appearance of other characters that will turn Norval's normal life into a very funny descent into hell.

You must accept that it is a black comedy with situations that may seem absurd to you, but which are characteristic of this genre. I make this clarification, because there are people who do not understand that they must assume the universe that some films pose to them. As crazy and incoherent as they may be.

For example, the behavior of the policeman, when he asks Norval questions and looks him straight in the eye for several seconds, and then tells him to believe him, to look like a good person because he doesn't have raisin eyes. It's an absurd scene! But the scene makes sense within the universe of this film. That scene would not make sense in a movie like the one I recommended a few days ago, which was a social drama.

A normal person, in our real world, would have called the police when she was being chased by criminals, but the characters in the film don't do that because they are built to behave abnormally in that universe, shaping the story. It is simple. That's why you have to accept and get involved in the absurdity of all the elements of the plot, in order to enjoy it.

The first part of the film is more boring (for me), but after the twist, everything gets out of control. The violence, the blood is present and I started to enjoy it, I am fascinated by the scenes in which a seemingly normal person is pushed to commit bloody acts.

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Ant Timpson is the filmmaker in charge of directing the film. He is a filmmaker from New Zealand, with more experience as a producer, apparently this is his debut as a director of a feature film. He has produced films and television series in the horror genre. He was the producer of a challenge in his country, for young people to make a short film in a period of 48 hours. He is a personal friend of the film's protagonist, with whom he has worked before.

Elijah Wood is the actor in charge of bringing Norval's character to life. The actor needs no introduction, everyone knows who he is since he starred in the Lord of the Rings saga. During the last few years, the actor has participated in many productions that approach horror, or with stories that are a little dark. It seems to me that an actor who does not mind participating in big or small productions, from studios or independent, what matters is to stand out with strange characters. Norval is a strange character, a DJ who lies pretending to be a great artist, shy and cowardly, but the facts will make him show his more perverse side.

Stephen McHattie Michael Smiley and Martin Donovan are other actors that stand out, I will not say the characters they play so as not to ruin the surprise of the story.

Trailer

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POSTER

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