Rating: D+
Dir: Gordon Shoemaker Foxwood
Star: Mollie Kunz, Michael X. Sommers, Claire Saunders, Colleen Camp
This is another one of those efforts which leans heavily into “X is really a metaphor for Y”. I’ve tended to find these underwhelming in the past. You want to make a movie about depression: fine. Just don’t try and sell it to me as a horror movie where the masked killer is a symbol for the protagonist’s battle with depression. That’s like ordering a burger, only to be told on delivery, “Oh, we replaced the meat with a cauliflower patty because we think it’s better for you”. This feels like a cauliflower patty movie. Given the poster, I was expecting considerably more battles with monsters, and significantly less moping around.
The mopee here is Lily Pierce (Kunz), whose mother Genevieve (Camp) committed suicide in front of her two decades previously, and who understandably is still troubled, in therapy, and finds it difficult to sustain relationships. She is going out with architect Willow (Saunders), and the twentieth anniversary of Genevieve’s death is looming. Her estranged father Gregory (Sommers) asks her out to the family estate, on the pretext of getting rid of Genevieve’s old things, an invitation Lily reluctantly accepts. But the more she delves into her mother’s last papers, the more she’s convinced that a monster, feeding on emotional pain, was responsible for Genevieve taking her own life. Lily will need to find and defeat it in battle, if she is ever to be free of its control.
Fortunately – and what are the odds? – Lily is a fencing master, and there’s a forge out back. This means she and Dad, after he has been convinced his daughter isn’t utterly mad, can whack together a suit of armour or whatever, as an exercise in trust and reestablishing their relationship. Who needs therapy, when you can bang out some plate mail instead? Then she goes off wandering into the woods until she meets the monster, which naturally takes the shape of her mother. Oddly, both Gregory and Willow can see it too, which is kinda odd if this is all a metaphor. What it definitely is not, however, is any kind of D&D-like adventure. More’s the pity: that might at least have been fun.
Instead, it’s a drab, straightforward tale of long-repressed (as well, let’s be honest, as not so repressed) trauma, and the resulting mental damage. I’ve no issues with the performances, Kunz is actually pretty good, and the main reason I didn’t walk out. Which would have been awkward, since I was genuinely watching this on a plane, hohoho. But I did consider cutting my losses, and only persisted because I found myself caring somewhat about Lily. The rest of the characters? Meh. Foxwood’s direction is competent, I guess. I was just supremely uninterested in the artistic conceit at the core here. The very real impact of a situation like this, feels almost cheapened by its conversion into this scenario, instead of adding depth or providing additional insight.