‘They don’t let just anyone become a yoga instructor!’
Megan (Colby Minifie, who looks like a mix of Elisabeth Moss, Andrea Riseborough and Lauren Ambrose) returns to the family home to help her mother Barbara (Kate Burton)care for her dying father, Robert (Vaughn Armstrong) For once the house is quite nice and not a horribly depressing ice-cube of a home. (see: The Possession, Sisters).
Dad lays in bed screaming ‘Barbara!’ and he sounds a bit like when Chandler from Friends pretended to be Santa Claus.
Dad dies in the night and Megan learns that Barbara has hired a witch doctor (Neil Sandilands) to resurrect her dead husband. Megan is unwittingly part of the ritual which involves burning all of dad’s precious things and chopping fingers off. The ritual goes horribly wrong thanks to Megan hanging on to a photo of her and her dad.
While there’s some genuinely creepy moments like luminous eyes appearing in the dark and the witch doctor’s body being prised open at the spine from inside but who I assume are Robert’s hands, and there’s scenes that seem to have been stolen from other films (Vivarium, Hereditary) the script isn’t strong enough for us to root for Megan or Barbara. Megan spends a lot of time screaming, ‘Mum! Mum, nooooo!’ which gets really irritating after a while.
Final verdict: it’s basically the Monkey’s Paw. If resurrection is your thing, you might be better off reading Monstrillio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova, which does it with so much more depth (and scares).
Content warning: MUUUUUMMMM!!
