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It's the summer holidays - and teenaged Colton (Alex MacNicoll) is
pretty much confined to his home to babysit his little sister Rachel
(Meyrick Murphy). So it's no wonder that his mind starts to wonder and
he's showing more and more interest into the house across the street that
has been empty for years, but for the last few nights lights have gone on
and off in the house. Colton is curious enough to invest quite a bit of
money into surveillance equipment to see what's going on - and then he
bumps into lovely Heather (Genevieve Hannelius), a girl his age who has
apparently just moved into said house with her foster father Magnus
Torvald (Martin Kove). The two take an instant liking into one another,
but when Colton tries to ask her out, she turns him down, claiming her dad
to be very strict. Being turned down though makes Colton only more curious
about what's going on next door, and what he sees via his surveillance
cameras suggests it's nothing good. Also, Heather doesn't say it outright
but drops hints there's something going on, and reports trom yesteryear
suggest that the house has once been the location of Satanic rituals. When
he breaks into the house on a fact-finding mission - with his ass being
saved by Heather when her father almost catches him red-handed - he
collects plenty of evidence regarding something weird ... but when he
reports it to the police, Torvald manages to turn the blame around and
threatens Colton with a restraining order. So Colton, seconded by his best
friend Michael (JT Palmer), decides to go on a rescue mission - thing is,
he has no idea what to expect, and whatever it is, how to fight it ... If
you've read above synopsis and felt a bit reminded of Rear Window,
I can't really blame you, as the premise is similar, if rather nicely
woven into the context of teenage love. However, Day 13 pretty soon
leaves the all-too-familiar path of Hitchcock's classic to tell a tale of
dark horror, and one that leaves you in the dark about what's real and
what not till the very end (another parallel to Hitchcock's movie there)
while telling its tale with a maximum on tension and atmosphere with a few
well-placed shocks and much of the terror hidden in the subtext. The
result is a very solid horror flick that well deserves a watch.
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