Rating: D
Dir: Philip Roberts
Star: Anna Capraro, Marty Kintu, Neil Sandilands, Stephanie Schildknecht
It’s never a good sign when, less than ninety minutes after finishing this, I couldn’t remember the title of the film, and had to look it up. Not only is it forgettable, it doesn’t really mean anything related to the film. The poster is equally unconnected, and offers no insight into what to expect. It feels like both were purchased via a job lot of generic material generated by a PR company’s AI chatbot, in response to a generic query, along the lines of, “Please give me a title and poster for a movie.” Except this dates back more than a decade, so concerningly, actual humans were likely involved in the production of this slop.
I just spent one-quarter of the review bitching about such things. It tells you how forgettable everything else is. This is the story of two sisters, Angie (Capraro) and Yasmin (Schildknecht), who are on holiday in South Africa. The vacation seems to consist partly of the usual tourism, partly going to raves. It’s the latter which is the problem, because after one such event, Angie goes missing. Yasmin gets help from friendly local Jules (Kintu), and I was thinking we were going into And Soon The Darkness territory. Not so fast. This tries too hard to avoid xenophobia, and it takes a ludicrously short time, just a few minutes, before Yasmin is pointed – courtesy of Jules’ mother! – at the only white man in the area, weirdo sculptor Frank (Sandilands).
Of course he has kidnapped Angie and is holding her in his torture shed, because of unresolved mommy issues. What’s surprising is, how long it takes Yasmin and Jules to figure it out. I mean, they haven’t arrived at the ranch, before Frank’s canine has mauled them, ripping into Jules’ leg. They then accept his offer of hospitality until the wounds heal. Me? I’d be heading back into town, by any means necessary, and filing police reports, not hanging out with creepy attack dog dude for the duration. It doesn’t help that Frank (top) looks like someone ordered Christopher Lambert on Temu, then left him out in the rain for three weeks. The warning vibes here are close to off the charts.
Eventually, after Jules has mistaken the sounds of torture for sexual ecstasy (which seems the ultimate case of you’re doing it wrong), Yasmin figures out what’s up. She comes up with a cunning plan. Jules will distract Frank, while she rescues her sister. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong? Morgan Freeman voice: A lot, in fact. It’s a near-perfect blend of rank stupidity and gross incompetence. And that’s just the film-makers, hohoho. Okay, it isn’t that bad, and what you see of the South African veldt is picturesque and nicely-shot. However, it is thoroughly uninteresting in plot, being as predictable as a railroad line, while the performances are equally forgettable. Being a clone of And Soon The Darkness might have been a better option.