Rating: C+
Dir: Anthony C. Ferrante
Star: AnnaLynne McCord, Judd Nelson, Ted Raimi, Moon Bloodgood
This begins in New Year’s Eve, 1975 at the Dantenu Hotel in Los Angeles, where a bizarre incident leads to 12 people vanishing without trace, including the parents of a young kid, who is found roaming the hallways clutching an axe. Exactly 48 years later, party planner and recovering alcoholic Goldie (McCord) is running the venue’s celebration for demanding hotel manager Emitt (Raimi). He demands she continue despite the death of an employee in an “accident”, and harassment by long-term resident Brayer (Nelson), who predicts doom will come if the party goes ahead. Meanwhile, detective Stone (Bloodgood) can’t find the dead employee’s corpse, and is uncovering the building’s violent and lethal history, involving a recurring cycle of disappearances every dozen years.
Which means… oh, you do the math. Figure it out. Yeah, you do have to suspend your disbelief to accept that, by the fifth time in this particular cycle, with close to fifty unexplained disappearances in the books, on a strict schedule, nobody would have figured out the pattern, and at least be paying attention. Or that the event would be allowed to continue as the deadly cycle repeats. Even if it’s close to being the world’s least convincing party: “Look excited, folks! Wave your hands in the air! We’ll dub in some generic stock pop music later.” Yet despite some obvious and occasionally glaring flaws, this is a generally entertaining mash-up of elements from Stephen King and Lucio Fulci. Think 1408 crossed with The Beyond.
I’d say the cast probably are its strongest suit. Nelson is excellent as the only man who knows what’s going on – though convincing anyone else of that truth is another matter. He gets good help from McCord and Raimi; the former’s alcoholism is set up as being a bigger factor than it actually becomes, although there is a theme of lost time and wasted years. The hotel is an important, if uncredited, character as well. I’m not sure if it’s a location or sets, but either way, it’s impressive and atmospheric, providing a weighty sense of history comparable to – another King reference – an urban cousin to the Overlook Hotel. Credit also for sticking mostly to practical effects, occasionally pretty gnarly, though it seems the death of one child character might have been cut.
When we spoke to Ferrante, he called this “A big, horror, popcorn ride,” and he’s not far wrong. There’s a strong idea at its core, and it does a decent job of developing an entire mythology around this. A little like Bird Box, I could see other film-makers around the world taking it and offering their own spin on the concept. I wasn’t convinced by an ending that felt too easy: without spoilering, it’s along “deal with the devil undone by fine print” lines. Yet on the whole I was satisfied and entertained, getting a decent premise executed with competence and some energy. On the horror calendar, we can now cross December 31st off the list.