Bhavika Sicka

Black and white characters. Hypernationalist tropes. Terrible CGI. Unemotive acting. Deus ex machinas and other amateur plot devices. This was one of the most uninspiring films I've seen in a while.

An extremely gripping movie, with a very interesting narrative structure. Despite the grisly and disturbing scenes, none of the violence depicted felt gratuitous. The cast members acted extremely well, especially the killer duo, and the direction and cinematography kept me engaged and at the edge of my seat. What I admired the most about this film was the way in which common tropes (about the hero/beau saving the day, the hound dismembering its victims, the protagonist taking revenge, the baby surviving safe and unscathed) were subverted, making the film ultimately truer to life and thus all the more scary and disconcerting. I especially loved the last scene with the dog and the baby, because of how ironically tranquil and therefore unsettling it was -- we are left with the knowledge that the baby will probably die soon, but we are not explicitly told/shown so. I love remote-cabin-in-the-woods stories that involve deranged, unhinged, unscrupulous killers on the loose, and this film more than delivers!