The Strings – Slow Burner
Director: Ryan Glover
Writer: Ryan Glover, Krista Dzialoszynski (Screenplay)
Starring: Teagan Johnston, Jenna Schaefer, April Aliermo, Lora Bidner, Toby Hendy, Tara Niewiadomski
Plot: In the dead of winter, a musician travels to a remote cottage to work on new material, but soon finds herself under attack from a mysterious dark presence.
Tagline – Catherine will see beyond reality… Catherine will see beyond death… Catherine will see…
Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Strings starts as musician Catherine (Johnston) travels to a remote cottage to work on her latest project, with the idea of being away from the world to get over a recent break up.
As Catherine works on her music, she starts to get an uneasy feeling around the cottage, which slowly starts to get closer to her, as she looks for answers to ease her mind.
Thoughts on The Strings
Characters & Performances – Catherine is the musician looking to escape to work on her next project in a remote cottage, she is using tis a chance to recharge from things that haven’t gone to plan in her life. She is enjoying the peace, but finds herself becoming increasingly paranoid that she isn’t alone in this cottage, finding herself not sleeping, losing her sense of reality. Teagan Johnston does well in this leading role, with most of her scenes feeling like exploring scenes, well also including the emotional broken moments she has been through. When it comes to the supporting cast, we only get small meetings with people, a friend on the phone, a photographer who gets close to Catherine. Sadly none of the supporting cast get enough to do in the film.
Story – The story here follows a musician who is looking to getaway to create some fresh music and get away from her previous life problems only to find herself dealing with a dark presence. This story does come off very slow, with the emotional problems and needing to escape from life being clear and understanding. The problems come with the lack of much going on around haunting side of the story, not much gets explained and by the end of the film, you will feel like there should be a lot more going on.
Themes – The Strings is a horror that does create the very impressive location being used to create the isolation and tension through the film. When it comes to the pure horror of the film, we are left waiting for the big moment, which will get a good pay off, despite the slow build to it.
Final Thoughts – The Strings is a slow building horror that struggles to keep everything on the edge of your seat needed.
