El refugio

Renee (Tommie-Amber Pirie) and her girlfriend Valerie (Sarah Allen) are going on a retreat to a cabin in the woods. At the local store, Val gets hit on by James (Aaron Ashmore). There are suspicious happenings. Their car is gone. Their hosts are a couple of gay guys and they've been murdered by a masked man dressed in camo hunting gear.

This is a simple horror film. The gay targeting is somewhat interesting but the movie doesn't fully exploit it. I would have Renee try harder with the bear trap. The movie should spend more time with that scene to build up tension. It just struggles to build high tension. The actors are fine and there are some good ones here. The filmmaking is perfunctory. It's trying to be torture porn but It's not good enough. I don't think the director is a horror aficionado and it shows.

Far too dark for my liking, even with brightness up full you can hardly see what is going on, not that any of it is particularly interesting.

Becomes a bit formulaic and a bit woke-ish too but acting was competent. Uninventive kills with no visceral gore like they are trying to tone it down these days - would be rated a bit of a 15 cert or even a PG in my book!

Below average 4 hatchets this time round the kill-lberry bush!

I don't know a thing about lighting but I do know that when I'm looking at black screen during many scenes, something is wrong. Lighting or not, there is not much to this movie. And emphasizing "lesbian" couple is odd. Straight couple or lesbian couple....the movie would the exact same.

I wish it lasted a bit longer. It's not anything we haven't seen before but it was executed properly, what do you want more from this sub-genre?

Protagonists are very likable, especially Renee. Humor is present occasionally but isn't forced. I wish it had the same directorial angle as in the second half of the movie because the first half is kinda messy.

One of the negatives is that it's way too dark during some scenes in first half of the film, I watched it on highest resolution in complete darkness and still couldn't see what was going on.

Soundtrack is good, it adds to some already good scenes. Pace is tailored for its duration. Granted, characters haven't always made the smartest decisions (during the first half) but then again it's a slasher.

The ending was super enjoyable and gave me chills. 6/10.

I liked it, it was very typical though nothing we haven't seen before or something special I have seen films just like this a million times. But it had some tension in it and it was really enjoyable to spend my time I think it deserves to be watched at least once.