Ally (Akasha Villalobos) has just lost her daughter Samantha (Jill Young) in a most gruesome way - the girl killed herself by gouging out her eyes with Ally being only in the other room. Ever since, Ally is plagued by grieve and guilt alike, something that resulted in her being struck with a severe case of agoraphobia. Try as he might, her husband Michael (Major Dodge) is only of little help - so she accepts help from a psychotherapist who was recommended to her, Jan (Peggy Schott), and Jan prescribes her some hallucinogenic tea that will help her see her daughter again. Being a psychotherapist herself, Ally knows this to be wrong deep down, but her grief has made her somewhat blind to reason. And soon enough, Ally starts seeing things, like a masked man in the garden, just like in a picture Samantha has drawn, a young boy with no mouth (Bjorgvin Arnarson), and finally even Samantha herself. Only, Samantha seems to be much more mean-spirited than expected, and tries to make her mother gouge out her eyes, just like she did. Now while Jan does her best to convince Ally this is all part of the healing process, she also tells her about a legend of an African eye-collecting demon that has remarkable similarities to what's going on. Thing is, the sessions with Jan seem to not improbe Ally's state of mind, so much so that Michael gets worried enough to call professional help - and it's found out that the hallucinogenic tea is a much more powerful drug than Ally would have suspected. As a result, something's fishy with Jan. Thing is, Michael soon starts seeing the same strange things that Ally does, only he has never had any of the hallucinogenic tea. And the effects these things have on him seem to be much more severe than on Ally - to a possibly lethal degree ...

A very nice piece of somewhat slowburn horror that manages to tell a very complex and well-structured story that makes up the suspension of disbelief that it demands with solid storytelling that doesn't take shortcuts but works towards its shocks and manages to surprise plenty of times along the way. And a direction that finds the right balance between suspense and jump scares, the down-to-earth and the grotesque, and that's big on atmosphere without suffocating the actors, and a very strong ensemble cast make this one cool horror thriller - even before the pretty exciting and very surprising finale.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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