Wow, sometimes you stumble across an unexpected gem. The setup is a remote pair of forest rangers checking trail cams stumble across a pair of survivalists, initially promising to be a standard backwoods captivity/pursuit flick with no more to commend it than the notably gorgeous digital cinematography (which happily holds up from start to finish). Fortunately it turns out to be something else: a quiet and pretty original creature feature/body horror outing that I bet admirers of both Svenkmayer and Cronenberg would find things to enjoy in, not to mention being consistently well-directed and visually beautiful enough to evoke Lars von Trier’s earlier years. One of those horror films that probably pleased a lot of high-minded critics. I have little doubt Roger Ebert would have greatly enjoyed it, and I’m sorry not to be able to read his review of it. I’ll remember this one, and watch it again. Also notable for proving that, given some English dialog here and there and enough craft to thoroughly pull me in, a film can lean pretty heavy into foreign language and subtitles and yet not lose my attention.
