Synopsis
Everyone's primal fears of death and how horribly it can play out in your own mind.
Review
So the synopsis doesn't help. The long and the short of the film is that a group of teens go to an empty property to have a party, during the party they are drugged, and all but one awakens in, for functional purposes, a coffin.
Protagonist, Brie, awakens after the party and everyone else is gone. From there she leaves, goes home, and is "interneted" into the plot. She is cut off from the other people, occasionally her cell works, and she can talk to the others, other times, sadly not. The rules given by the grotesque smiley face on screen is: no parents, no police. When one of the unfortunate crew awaken, she calls her father - the local sheriff before being told not to.
This sets off a chain reaction of people being killed within their coffins, and the frantic chase to rescue them, led by Brie, and the local police, all contacted accidentally by the sheriff's daughter.
From the get go of the film the acting is pretty solid. The directing pretty good too. Director Leigh Sheehan has little to nothing to his name, and it was written by Tim C. Patterson, who has nothing else to his name in any category. The cast is made up from largely TV actors - actually most of them are from Aussie soap, Neighbours.
The problem which most will stumble over is the first act. The introduction of the young victims is done pretty badly - leaving a number of them unlikable. It's not the fault of the actors, nor the director. It's the writing. Honestly after a few minutes, I couldn't wait to get the murder. But when I did, the whole film changed. The writing was tighter. The characters more likable. I quickly changed my mind towards the victims.
I'd like to say it was cunning writing, but I think not. The writer is excellent at horror - tension building (aided by the skills of the director) and allowing the audience to stew in their own fear, but character development not so much. Which is a shame.
The first act, a let down, the second, excellent (and the second act is vastly longer than the other two), then we hit the third act. Some survive, some don't, and we have the reveal of the villain. This is a bit of a mish mash, and if you fully concentrated on the first act, you might know what was going on. The big reveal is somewhat a let down. Until three months later...
Now I'm not going to spoiler the big third act twist. It is, however worth waiting for. After a disappointing first act, and the action / horror packed second the third could have been a huge let down. Which it wasn't... but that's for you to find out for yourself.
The SFX in the film work well enough, as said the direction is pretty solid. Brie played by Alice Darling (The Fairies) is by far the standout of the film.
It's an interesting mix of Buried and Saw, and well worth the watch.
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