I am really not sure what is up with these Canadian film makers, but they sure seem to know how to make disturbing movies. I guess they’re all competing with David Cronenberg, and you gotta admit he sets the bar pretty high.

 A lot of people are calling this film a 70’s-ish psychological thriller. I don’t know about that, I mean there were a lot of disturbing films made during the 70’s and this is a disturbing film. Beyond that I don’t really see any other similarities. No disco, no evil hippies, no wa-wa guitars in the soundtrack. I guess some of the dorky dialogue could be considered 70’s-ish; trouble is Canadians really do talk that way. To be fair though, there is not a single utterance of “eh” in this entire film. Not even very Canadian if you ask me.

Story:

Dr. Samantha Goodman, a psychiatrist specializing in violent sexual predators discovers she is dying of a brain tumor and goes on a weekend getaway with her husband and sister to a cabin in the woods, where they are set upon by one of Goodman’s patients, who has apparently escaped and decided to get some payback from Goodman and her family for treatment he received while in her care, treatment he considers was unethical. You would imagine that payback exacted from a violent sexual predator would be violent, sexual and predatory - and you'd be right. But not all is as it all seems. (or something)
 
There are some plot twists that make this movie fairly unusual and certainly far from your standard “cabin in the woods psycho killer movie” but to go any further would be to bring out major spoilers and this movie deserves to tell its story its way. Trust me its better for all of us that way.

Good points:

There’s a lot to learn form watching this movie, like if you want to kill somebody with a nail, it’s a good idea to wrap a rag around your hand first to keep the head of the nail from going through your hand. You also get detailed instructions on how to cut your own finger off using a wire clipper. Things I always wanted to know. Now things I want to stop knowing.

Bad Points:

Well the dialogue is nothing special. The acting is not stellar either but neither distract from the story. From early on there is some very illogical behavior on the part of the main characters but have faith, this has to do with upcoming plot twists.

Conclusion:

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It’s disturbing and it goes places most people don’t want to go, but hey isn’t that what movies are for?