Moving out to the countryside, a mother and her daughter arrive at a woman's grandmother's mansion to work as a caregiver during the grandmother's streak of bizarre activity, but the longer they stay there come to realize there's something supernatural affecting them and must uncover the mystery to get away alive.
For the most part, there are some rather enjoyable aspects to this one. Among the most likable aspects here is the highly intriguing setup that promises quite a lot to like. While offering up plenty of cliches with the central setup of the mother arriving at a remote village to care for the ailing family member and stumbling upon a deadly secret haunting the area, enough is added in to make for an engrossing mystery. There's just enough odd about the way the grandmother acts, going from childishly playing with food or seemingly aloof about what's going on to sudden bursts of energy and rage that speak of otherworldly forces at play, and this behavior is greatly enhanced by the quips about how hard it is taking care of someone in that condition that paint a picture of a burgeoning mystery that needs to be explored. Even more setup comes about with the news of her daughter stowing away and living at the house against the grandmothers' instructions so keeping her presence a secret complicates matters greatly and adds nicely to the strangeness felt at the house. This serves the film quite well when it starts to introduce the more overt supernatural elements. Starting nicely with small-scale factors like the discovery of strange talisman protections throughout the house, cryptic warnings from neighbors to leave without elaborating, or the grandmother talking to her daughter in an almost eerie playful manner, there's enough that's slightly off to feel uneasy living in the house even if there's no overtly obvious creep factor. When this escalates to vivid nightmarish dreams of demonic entities living in the house, ghostly visions of the grandmother or some other figure running around performing unnatural actions, or the continuous disappearing acts she does resulting in an intense search around the house for her, there's quite a lot to like about the atmosphere present. Taking a drastic turn at this point to reveal the truth about her and her dark past, this provides quite a lot of generally impressive flashbacks offering a slew of dark reveals about the past being brought to the surface. This offers up even more Gothic atmosphere and is graced with a logical turn to the occult as well for some more enjoyable aspects, making for a generally enjoyable effort. There are some issues here that pop up in this one. One of the biggest drawbacks is the rather obvious slow-burn tempo on display that tends to drag out the running time quite heavily. With quite a lot of the running time here devoted to the mother trying to come to terms with the grandmother's skittish behavior and turn-on-a-dime personality switches, the obvious intent is more on mystery-building rather than launching a series of scares the setup could've turned out to be. This continues for much of the second half as well with the attempt at looking into the strange history of the lake near the house and surrounding woods. That leaves the film with a solidly creepy and chilling atmosphere for most of the running time until the finale when it starts to move with more urgency and adrenaline as the stoic nature of everything beforehand is quite slow and plodding in contrast which can be a turn-off. Likewise, the reliance on cliches present throughout here, from a stressed single mother trying to raise a rambunctious child while also full-time caring for an elderly woman in a large house who has a gruesome secret is all too familiar and doesn't add much difference from dozens of other efforts. It's not truly detrimental but does end up bringing this down.
Rated Unrated/R: Language, Violence, and children-in-jeopardy.
