Everfall

I found this at a Dollar Tree and was pulled in by the cover, which is pretty cool, though the back shows one person with a knife and another with a rifle for some reason (note: there are no knives or rifles in the film, lol).

So, the setup is good, building tension with Daniel's extreme video series. It grows a little muddy after protagonist Eva falls during a skating tryout, and then it reveals she's injured. Turns out this injury is from another, earlier time.

This telegraphs some issues with the story throughout - namely that a bit too much is left to mystery, hoping to fill viewers in later. Normally, this is fine, but occasionally here it ends up just confusing. For example: who's the little girl that pops up every now and then? Still not sure. Is the skater who died there the same as the current event organizer and the shapeshifter witch lady? I think so.

On the upside, the dialog is well done for a lower-budget project. I seldom felt like people were speaking out of character or ruining immersion (save for the firefighter telling his guys to stay and then yelling at them to leave to comical effect).

The CGI was quite good for this level, as well. In fact, I'd have leaned even more on it. That is, some of the effects that were based on set design would have been better suited as CGI. For example, I didn't really buy that the rink looked burned down from the odd charcoal coloring on the walls, but perhaps CGI could have more accurately conveyed this impression.

Another positive is that it never tried to be anything other than a horror film. Each element of the story was clearly there to up the tension and build the horror. It didn't always work, but at least it didn't feel meandering in that regard.

As with many lower-budget horror films, a tighter edit in post, where the editor was willing to scrap visual cues that just weren't working, would have bumped it another star.