Director: Pascal Laugier
Writer: Pascal Laugier (Screenplay)
Starring: Crystal Reed, Mylene Farmer, Anastasia Phillips, Emilia Jones, Taylor Hickson
Plot: A mother of two who inherits a house is confronted with murderous intruders on the first night in their new home and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later when the daughters reunite at the house, things get really strange.
Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Overly Twisty Film
Story: Incident in a Ghostland starts as a mother Pauline (Farmer) is moving her two daughters Beth (Jones) and Vera (Hickson) across country to a new home, only for them to get attacked by a serial killer. Years later Beth (Reed) has become a horror author, one of the most famous in the industry, while Pauline and Vera (Phillips) remained in the home.
Beth returns to the home to discover Vera is struggling with the nightmares, but not everything is what it seems in the home, but can Beth handle the truth.
Thoughts on Incident in a Ghostland
Characters – Beth suffered through the traumatic childhood event moving to LA to become a successful author and having her own family, she must return to the home where the trauma happened to make a discovery that will leave her shocked. Vera never left the home, constantly traumatised by the events of what happened, showing the warnings of the truth to her sister. Pauline is their mother who does want to move them to a new home, she is trying to give the girls a fresh home. When it comes to the killers, we get to see their twisted fantasies unfolding.
Performances – When it comes to the performances, we must look at the pairs, the younger and older versions of both the girls, Crystal Reed and Emilia Jones as Beth, who both show the strengths in their character, while Anastasia Phillips and Taylor Hickson bring more of the panic to everything we are seeing.
Story – The story here follows two sisters that see their new life shattered by a serial killer attack, one escapes the pain of the world, while the other remains trapped, only for a reunion to bring about a new nightmare for one of them. This is a story that does do something different with what would be just a normal reunion horror, it does diving into the mental state caused by such a break, which does drive the story forward, it might well go for too many attempts at twists, which doesn’t help with the final outcome. We can’t go into too much more of the story without giving away too much of the truth behind twists.
Horror/Mystery – The horror in this film does come from seeing what the serial killer wants to do with the family and the nightmares it has left them experiencing, this does dive into the mystery of everything too, showing us just what might be happening to the family in the aftermath of the attack.
Settings – The film uses the isolated home to show us how the serial killer would act, what it would mean to them to get the family alone to do what they wanted, while older Beth has the perfect life, a complete opposite to what the killers want.
Special Effects – The effects in the film are strong, we do get to see the gore the director is know for, only not as intense, but we still get skin being ripped off body parts.
Scene of the Movie – The truth.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Dumb Cops.
Final Thoughts – This is a horror that does keep us guessing, while diving in a direction we didn’t see coming, it has strong gore, only it ends up pulling into the overuse of twists to get the biggest impact.
Overall: Overly Twisty.
