The Ones You Didn’t Burn – Frightfest Movie Review
Director: Elise Finnerty
Writer: Elise Finnerty (Screenplay)
Cast
- Samuel Dunning (Blue Bloods)
- Elisa Finnerty
- Estelle Girard Parks (The Virtuoso)
- Jenna Sander (Sanitatum)
- Nathan Wallace (The Black List)
Plot: After their father passes away, two siblings return to their old family farm to sell off the land. However, darker forces may be at play that will force them to reanalyse their relation to their ancestor’s land.
Runtime: 1 Hour 10 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Ones You Didn’t Burn starts as siblings Nathan (Wallace) and Mirra (Sander) return to their father’s home after his death. The pair need to try and put their differences aside, as they look to move on with their lives.
Nathan starts having the same nightmares of a woman appearing from the ocean, trying to understand the visions. Meanwhile, Mirra is trying to keep up the hopes of the locals who couldn’t imagine the farm being sold. Nathan and Mirra start experiencing strange events after spending time with the locals but don’t quite understand what is going on.
Verdict on The Ones You Didn’t Burn
Characters
Nathan has returned home after his father’s death. He has always struggled for money, with this chance to sell the farm and support himself for once. Nathan clashes with his sister about getting it done quickly and soon he finds himself struggling with nightmares, related to his father’s past.
Mirra has seen things differently, she wants to keep the farm and the workers. She has become close to the workers who have managed to put their own spell on her. Mirra will clash with Nathan about whether they will keep or sell the farm.
Alice and Scarlett are the two women who work on the farm. They have a spiritual way of approaching things, as they look to offer friendship to Mirra because of the relationship they had with her father.
Performances
Nathan Wallace takes the leading role as the unstable man who just lost his father. He does a great job showing how his character is seeing the world crumble around him.
Jenna Sander is great in her role as the character who is more grounded in the film. Elise Finnerty and Estelle Girard Parks are both great as workers who have an unusual power about them.
Story
The story follows siblings that have returned home with different plans for their father’s farm after he passed away. This only gets more complicated when the two workers start to get closer to them.
The story is kept with the mystery about what the workers next door are all about, as well as the mystery about the dreams Nathan is going through. The two things come together in a mixed fashion, as the story does hint heavily at what has happened, but doesn’t seem to put enough on why nothing more has been done before. There does feel like a certain spark is missing from the final story.
Themes
The Ones You Didn’t Burn is a horror mystery that sees the family farm and ocean being key to everything that is going on. The farm has a history that is much darker than the siblings believed and the ocean holds an escape they are not prepared for. In the pure horror side of the movie, it is the nightmares they suffer that bring the most scares, which is a more uncomfortable feeling for them to experience.
Final Thoughts – The Ones You Didn’t Burn is an uneasy thriller that doesn’t quite hit the scare factor it wants to.
