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After John's (Marc Slanger) wife Samantha (Jordan Lewis) has suffered a
miscarriage, something they're both pretty traumatized from, he asks his
boss (Anthony J. Anastasio) to be relocated from NYC to the countryside
for some peace and quiet - and is given an assignment in an Appalachian
former coal town to help get the building of a casino on the way ... which
also includes disowning some of the locals for the sake of
"progress" - in a perfectly legal way of course, but still the
locals are less than pleased. So eventually, John and Samantha's home in
the village is broken into and Samantha's journal with all her most
personal thoughts is stolen ... and soon everybody in town seems to know
its content. What's shocking though is that the Sheriff (James Warnier)
shows little interest in helping them. Eventually there's another
break-in, and Satanic symbols are painted onto the basement walls as a
sort of warning. John soon doesn't know where to turn anymore as his
psychiatrist (Mark Baker) as well as the local priest (Mark Ashby) seem to
poorly disguise threats as benign advice ... and then Samantha's gone all
of a sudden, and what John finds out trying to track her down is not
exactly encouraging ... Ed Wood veteran Conrad Brooks plays one of the
locals who have to be relocated. A pretty cool horror thriller that
really understands how to build up tension and suspense while keeping the
audience guessing until the end, and a film that knows when it's better to
only hint at things rather than to drag them out into the light and
explain everything away, boring the audience to death in the process. And
while the film also stays away from spectacle as such, it still uses
powerful, atmospheric imagery to bring its point across. And add to that
some really compact performances, and a great backdrop to tell its story
in, and you've got yourself a pretty cool movie!
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