Bameron

I wish I had read less about it in advance, but I was too excited to help myself. I would’ve given it a 10, but my bar was impossibly high. The pace lags a bit right in the middle, but its highs more than make up for a slightly meandering midsection. My theater was gasping, giggling, and yelling at all the right times.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Great premise and a solid first act - brutal and uncompromising from the jump, some nice buildup of dread, and some pretty gnarly practical effects and visuals - but it sags under the weight of its logic about midway through. The ending doesn’t pack the punch it needs to because the trauma the main character harbors feels too generic. Should be a brutal twist of the knife or at least cathartic, but ultimately just feels predictable. The filmmakers clearly have an eye for horror, but maybe not the chops yet to sustain a full feature.