My streaming service classified this within the Horror genre. IMBD has it as Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Drama- which is correct. No horror. In short, I really enjoyed it, but it's full of dropped story lines, stiff acting, and lack of explanation. The end is a good 'wrap up" in some weys but doesn't go far enough. .A 30-somehting couple have just escaped from Chicago rat race to buy a 1000 acre farm with the requistte farmhouse charm and large barn, near a picturesque town. The don't plan to farm, just enjoy the nature, seclusion and warm-country atmosphere. The husband is a budding photographer and immediately begins his snapping pictures. Incljuding one of his nearest neighbor who had ambled to his house. When the owner of the town's only gallery sees the neighbor in the photo, he becomes hostile and kicks the husband out. We can see that the owner jumped to an incorrect conclusion. Soon the whole town knows about this city couple who's moved in and, in their view, causing upneset. Later his photographs in the field in front of his house included some strange things including people that husband could see. Meanwhile the wife is rummaging through the detritus left by the prior occupant. She finds photos and objects that suggest the former occupants were into something occult or evil. This coupled with the odd photographs and townsfolk's hostility, leads the wife to fear the farm is haunted and leading to marital friction. Meanwhile the Sherriff is hassling them relentlessly. And the husband becomes increasingly obssessed with discovering the rationale for the oddities.. Without providing spoiler, the freakiness is dealt with-kind of. The film is beautifully shot, the audience feels the positive experience of the couple starting out their new rural life.
The script isn't great, and/or the actors don't seem to be authentically embracing it. Also, when the husband encounter's the townsfolks
misunderstandings about their purpose there, he just sort of walks away. He doesn't, in any meaningful way, disabuse them of their negative assumptions. The hostility and mistrust leads to increasing the and sherriff's paranoia. It's just not realistic. There are several threads/ideas in the film that are just left hanging with no resolution. Even the main mystery is never really explained. If this was 1950s or 1960's Sci-Fi film, the couple would have found a scientist who would provide some explanation. But this film lacks the ubiquitous scientist, Many scenes are "one-off" scenes with no connection to the core plot. .I think this is the film's greatest shortcoming. There aren't evern any theories that the audience could work with to wrap it up. There's also some scenes that either never added to the plot, or did, but a previous scene is now deleted/edited out. For example, there's a "inn-town" scene of an exchange between the husband and clerk: The conversation they engage in is intentionally weird, but it seems to be a follow-up on a previous conversation that they had had. Except we've never seen the first encounter (as far as I can recall). The banter between the clerk and husband is makes no sense, and doesn't add to the film an any way. If you can live with plot holes, misdirection, and not the best acting, this is worth seeing. It's fun, has some satisfying righteous and positive moments.
