Rating: D+
Dir: Mitesh Kumar Patel
Star: Meredith VanCuyk, Joey Heyworth, Missy Jane, Cortney Davis
Property developer Gabbi Reynolds (VanCuyk) travels to Jerome, Arizona to scope potential land. She stays in a giant AirBNB house, and is unfazed by the series of spooky incidents, both there and around town. There’s a meetcute with local Owen Bannister (Heyworth), who’s showing her around town, but the house decides it has had enough of this snowbird, and unleashes its worst. Turns out a previous occupant had killed his wife and laid a curse, which can… Um, well, it’s never entirely clear, but seems to trap residents like Gabbi in a parallel dimension, where they can see other people in the house, but can’t interact with them, or leave. They’re trapped in a time/space bubble, and might end bumping into alternate, evil versions of themselves too.
Yeah, one of the problems here is a script which simultaneously wants to do too much, and not enough. There are enough ideas here for several movies, but that overstuffing leaves most of them poorly explained, if they are explained at all. For example, the twisting of the space around the house is little more than a gimmick for a scene where Gabbi runs around the house, but ends up repeatedly in the same room. It’s cool, but… does it push the plot forward? The same goes for the moment where Gabbi’s reflection behaves independently. How the house operates is in desperate need of more rigour. Too often, shit just happens, like the possessed kaleidoscope (top).
Which wouldn’t be an absolute showstopper. After all, you could say much the same thing about Suspiria. But while that captures the feeling of a waking nightmare, this seems more like a waking slog through molasses. Watching Gabbi wander round the house, occasionally shrieking “OWENNNNN!” is of limited appeal. Was annoyed to see local douchebag Sean Dillingham appear as Gabbi’s boss. Though amusingly, he literally phones in his lines. [Probably for the best as far as any actresses are concerned, if certain reports are true. Can’t cancel culture get anything right?] While obviously filmed in and around Jerome, it’s mostly super-generic footage, not particularly depicting the “ghost town” claimed. The one spooky scene, again, doesn’t make sense in the context of the plot.
Another issue is that Gabbi and Owen have close to zero chemistry. This renders his desperate attempts in the final act, to save a woman he has known for a couple of days, more bemusing than anything. The late arrival of Jane doesn’t help, cosplaying as a sheriff, blissfully ignorant about the existence of “probable cause”. I will say, the house in which all this unfolds is a gorgeous vintage one, and the location director who found it deserves their pay. Hardly anyone else involved in this does. Sporadic moments of effectiveness are more than countered by increasing irritation. The tipping point for me was Gabbi, desperately trying to escape the house and with a badly wounded arm, deciding to sit down and read a previous resident’s diary instead. It was all downhill thereafter.