Ryan Clark

So first of all SPOILERS. Let me just say I did enjoy this movie until it ended I started thinking about it which starts with the ending with Mallory not being Mal….this makes no sense seeing how the witch kills and wears the skin of MOTHERS or in Sara’s case an older woman. Secondly, Sara…how did she even get in their house? Ben made a salt circle all around their house to protect them from her yet she just walks right in? but yet we clearly see salt affects her in the end when Mal is protecting Ben when he’s saving Nathan. Third, Nathan is interesting and could’ve had a lot of potential as a twist character. By twist character I mean the witch made Ben forget that he had a little brother the entire time…even before he met the witch or before she appear next door….I was confused x amount of the time during the movie because certain things characters would say like “oh look a the little artist” or the mom saying “how are my favorite boys?” I was like is the dad and the mom not divorced? and the dad is cheating? there’s no way the son wants to meet the other woman. It just makes no sense for him to forget BEFORE the witch even gets started with him. NOW what they could’ve done is introduced Nathan at the beginning being called a little artist and then him being slowly phased out along with the drawings on Ben’s cast one by one leading us, the viewing audience, to forget about Nathan as well which would’ve been cool. Fourth, speaking of forgetting does everyone in this town just forget about people having kids and them going missing? or the entire family at one point? I mean i get there’s a lot of vacation homes there like the dad said but you’re going to tell me this doesn’t happen to locals? Fifth, the bullies whom i’m assuming are locals…what’s up with that? nothing got resolved with that. Sixth, it was never resolved what the beginning scene is all about with the babysitter. originally I was thinking it’d be the same house from the beginning…nope. i guess it was just supposed to be showing this has been going on for 35+ years and no one’s noticed it and the symbol that’s carved everywhere Finally, the symbol. I know it’s the witches symbol but what does it represent? i assumed a deers head seeing the alter and her wearing it as sara at one point but why is it inscribed everywhere on the house or houses of women she possesses? Never states this so i don’t get. Like i said it’s not a bad movie it just doesn’t explain stuff or resolve certain plots. I wouldn’t say it’s a waste of time watching it like others do.

So my opinion of this movie isn’t bad...but it isn’t good. The entire time i was watching it I felt as if i was missing something. Somethings just didn’t feel right to me. Perhaps it was the acting or the way it was written. I just kept thinking this has to be based on a book the way I felt it flowed. The overall plot is just lacking and it kills me bc it seems like it’d be a great movie unfortunately it is not. Maybe there just wasn’t any chemistry between the actors. I won’t bash the character for having a flip phone butttttt I like how his parents have new phones with apps and he doesn’t. They also only have one computer in the entire house? why doesn’t a high school student have his own? they seem like they would have the money. [Spoilers] How has this kid never and i mean NEVER been in his dads shed before? i know it’s locked but still. later on I don’t see how someone could be so in disbelief that someone they love is a killer that they would purposely destroy evidence and believe some random bs story and they just forget they saw an entire dungeon room under THEIR house and yet he believes it was his uncles dunegon room (who never lived there). Then out of no where there’s some type of romance with the main character and the girl? On top of that let’s discuss the giant plot whole of how the last victim lived and didn’t even call the cops and kept silent about an intruder (i know they said she didn’t see his face but still). However, there’s still blood on the lamp used to bash his head in and probably on her carpet. We also never learn WHY he stopped killing 10 years ago and how it was connected to the uncle, if at all. we do know he killed more than we thought but still.

So I honestly really liked the movie but was grossed out at the part with Dan but I knew it was coming. To me this movie was definitely a thriller bc of the suspense but not really a horror. It probably made the category bc of the gore. *SPOILERS* Main hidden message: after thinking about it I think the message is success is built upon failure and sacrifice. Dan and Joe both failed getting down the mountain but out of that Parker successfully managed to get down bc of their failures. Dan showed her how to properly get down without hurting/sacrificing her legs and that there were wolves. Joe failed getting down the mountain but led the wolves away and made it to where the chair would break and stop halfway down. He also kept the wolves at bay by sacrificing himself (them eating him). Cons: I just get kick about how all of them are college students but none of them thought about telling Dan to watch how he falls. Also none of them thought about tell him to left himself down as far as he could before jumping like Parker does it’ll save some strain on your legs on the way down and in the type of situation that means everything. I know some people in the reviews are hating on the wolves but I feel like wolves can smell blood and that’s what drew the first one in then he called his friends. Although I will say it doesn’t make sense that they stayed around and that there are wolves at a ski resort especially if they have snow plows that go around at night on work days. Now as for the coats yeah they should’ve had heavier stuff on and should’ve zipped up their stuff and also I never understood why they started taking off their clothes to help Dan. Also the cords being razor sharp after looking it up is a lie. Those things are not sharp but I guess they did it for suspense.

This movie is kind of a joke. I don’t mind the characters but you unnecessarily see the mom naked so many times. **SPOILER*** you don’t find out who the killer is and he kills everyone which is a let down. I understand in life you never find out and you never find out the intent (if there is any) but this is meh. Plot Holes 1.) how the hell is killer staying in the house without them knowing. I get there’s an open house every day but the realtors would notice the same guy being there everyday. He doesn’t have a spare key bc the realtors give the keys back. what is he eating and where is going to the bathroom? 2.) there’s a home invasion and the cops do nothing (which apparently is realistic) even after they were told there was all this activity inside the house every night leading up to the invasion). Also the guy is a serial killer meaning there must’ve been multiple murders before this which were all open houses. the cops would’ve been informed of this pattern from either a news source or other cops and probably would’ve been like yeah there’s a serial killer on the loose killing people who live in open houses. 3.) “No Sim Card Detected” showing up in the phone was dumb (biggest plot hole for me). The kid has an iPhone....even when you don’t have a SIM card in it you can still call the cops. 4.) How’d Chris get to the car and then get his throat slit? Like there’s no blood in the living room or couch so he was obviously got killed in the car and he started it up. There also would’ve been some sort of struggle but you barely hear any noise at all. 5.) these people have to be the heaviest sleepers possible. Someone is literally walking around in the house constantly at night wearing boots taking pictures of them and they don’t wake up. 6.) how’d the mom just take her son out of school? (he’s in high school.) Wouldn’t you get arrested from him not attending and they weren’t moving anywhere either she was just crashing at her sisters house that was for sale.

It has great production quality and good actors. The story is good as well. The only reason why I’m giving it 4/5 is because *Spoiler* There isn’t really a coming out. It’s a coming out movie where no one comes out. There’s literally zero character development (if not zero than a little above that) with one of the main characters towards who he is and what’s going on with him/through his head and there’s also a story that’s told by another character that doesn’t get fully told (for those of you reading the party story where she gets sexually assaulted) . Like you know what went down from hints but a flashback would’ve been nice because the story seems to come out of no where. The ending also leaves off on a weird note there really isn’t a conflict resolution between two major characters which there should’ve been. I know it’s somewhat implied through 2 symbolic actions that happened in the end but still. There is however a lot of inner conflict with the main main character that gets resolved and with his family. Anything outside that though didn’t really get resolved (which I guess maybe is supposed to be a realistic thing? Like how some of never get closure). If they had spent maybe an addition 10-20 minutes clearing these issues up I would’ve given it a 5/5.