Heading out to a remote cabin, a group of friends looking to help their newly sober friend keep his drug-free streak going end up realizing that their numbers slowly disappearing over the weekend might not be their imagination but the work of a spectral boogeyman and must try to stop it.
This was a severely disappointing effort without much to enjoy. Among its only positive aspects is the rather intriguing sense of uncertainty that builds up over whether the hallucinations or visions about the spirit haunting the trip. With his drug-fueled past and reckless abandon, there's a genuine ability here to be quite hard to tell what's going on with the confrontations and encounters with the spirit around the cabin attacking his friends, being quite difficult to tell if it's real or if there's something in his head. That soon turns into a strong rampage where the figure proves its true nature and sets about slaughtering the group in fine form as everything features some intriguing setpieces with some fine gore to help move the film along. Since it played off the mistrust trying to figure everything out, the excess strength makes the gags far more enjoyable, and with some fine nudity along the way, make for some fun elements here. There are some big problems here that hold this down. One of the biggest issues with this one is a cast of utterly unlikable and irritating characters that we're supposed to sympathize with but never come close to. The group that we spend time with are just flat out uninteresting, with the recovering drug addict a squirrely, whiny sleazebag more interested in getting high in secret or spying on the girls around him to build any interest, the couple who are leading the retreat spend more time having sex than trying to help him, and with stoners or flaky, untrustworthy figures around him trying to do their own thing that leads to him engaging in his vices rather than get help nothing here goes to plan. It's just not interesting how we're spending time doing these unproductive means that are far more selfish than anything else that his constant relapses are more their fault than anything else. The other outstanding flaw that emerges, with this setup being the main culprit, is that hardly anything remotely scary, chilling, or even funny arises for long durations of the running time. With the film trying to paint the idea of these instances where he acts shifty and squirrely, hiding his drug-induced state from those trying to help him, it's all bland and stupid due to how these scenes are played out. Their selfish and reckless behavior causes everything to happen, only to have it blow up in their face when he becomes maniac and on edge, which is simply not funny in the slightest. Moreso, the fact that he's constantly screaming out and yelling or seemingly unable to trust what's going on in front of him doesn't inspire laughs either, so everything is rather awkward and disjointed. Combined with the obvious low-budget limitations, these lower this one.
Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity, sex scenes, and drug use.
