For their honeymoon, a newly-wed couple Paul and Bea travel to the bride's former home, a rural, sparsely populated community in Canada. A strange encounter with an old acquaintance follows a sleepwalking incident involving Bea and from hereon in it becomes clear that something is terribly wrong.
This indie flick has a very small cast that relies largely on the acting of its two central characters, a couple of Brits called Rose Leslie and Harry Treadway whose American accents are pretty flawless it has to be said. Both put in very strong performances in roles that require a fair bit of range. The characters evolve from so-happy-we'll-make-you-sick just married, through to relationship distrust and eventually onto outright psychological horror. The actors are good enough to convince in all these very differing levels of emotion. Because the story has so few characters, such a remote setting and such intense emotions, it's a film that is somewhat claustrophobic in its effect. It underplays the horror side of things and slowly builds thing up layer by layer. But we are never in any doubt that there is something very strange going on and there are small unusual clues punctuated along the way, such as strange sexual-looking marks on Bea's body, a recurring gooey substance found alongside her discarded night-dress and her strange distant behaviour. To reveal any more would be unfair, so I will leave it at that but suffice to say that this is a very good, mysterious genre piece well directed by Leigh Janiak.
This indie flick has a very small cast that relies largely on the acting of its two central characters, a couple of Brits called Rose Leslie and Harry Treadway whose American accents are pretty flawless it has to be said. Both put in very strong performances in roles that require a fair bit of range. The characters evolve from so-happy-we'll-make-you-sick just married, through to relationship distrust and eventually onto outright psychological horror. The actors are good enough to convince in all these very differing levels of emotion. Because the story has so few characters, such a remote setting and such intense emotions, it's a film that is somewhat claustrophobic in its effect. It underplays the horror side of things and slowly builds thing up layer by layer. But we are never in any doubt that there is something very strange going on and there are small unusual clues punctuated along the way, such as strange sexual-looking marks on Bea's body, a recurring gooey substance found alongside her discarded night-dress and her strange distant behaviour. To reveal any more would be unfair, so I will leave it at that but suffice to say that this is a very good, mysterious genre piece well directed by Leigh Janiak.