[Farmhouse]
Plot:A psychological horror/thriller set in the modern day mid-west....follows a young couple as they leave their everyday lives behind and head out to a new beginning; starting over from scratch. After becoming stranded in an isolated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, the young couple is forced to face the secrets they're running from, all the while trying to escape the malicious intent of the farmhouse's mysterious inhabitants.

Cast:Drew Sidora, Sam Sarpong, Nick Heyman, Kelly Hu, Steven Weber.

My Thoughts:Not bad.

Review:"The Farmhouse", a film from director George Bessudo, is a further more interesting indie effort than the norm that comes out of the indie horror subgenre. The film deals with a trouble young couple, who plan to start over, so they decide to leave town. However, they become stranded after a car wreck, and exit the vehicle to find themselves in a desolate rural area. Their only hope for help, comes in the form of a mysterious farmhouse where they hope they can get some assistance.

But upon meeting the farmhouses two occupants, a strange but elegant couple, they soon come to realize that they are in a lot more trouble than at first realized. "The Farmhouse" is another one of those horror movies where some lost or stranded people happen upon a mysterious place, and are taken in by it's occupants. So as viewers, we wait, because we know already that the couple are young and naive, we know already that the houses owners are psychotic and dangerous in some way, shape, or form.

We know their hospitality is a slow and vicious lure and a cover to get their guests to let their guard down, and then WHAM! They seize upon them, carrying out malicious and evil acts upon their person over and over again. We've seen it in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and it's sequels, we saw it in "House Of 1000 Corpses", we've seen it countless times in countless films. This film however is a bit more cryptic about the motives of the farmhouses occupants, and their identities. First off, we learn little bits of the young stranded couples backstory along the way, as the film moves along.

Thus, we are left to believe all sorts of things about the farmhouses occupants. Are they enforcers for loan sharks? Are they other people who the couple owes money to? Or are they your classic sick rural, redneck, types? And where does Lilith and Samael, the farmhouse owners mysterious seemingly brain-damaged farmhand Alal fit into all of this? Considering Kelly Hu stars in the film as the better half of the farmhouse couple, the sick hillbilly option is immediately eliminated, atleast in the short term.

So it must be one of the other options right? Or is it a much darker reveal that awaits the viewer? The film slowly unfolds this story and gives us new and intriguing details about the young stranded couple and their troubles, and little by little, things begin to fall more and more into place. The one weakness the film has though is it's performances. While Hu's performance as the dark, yet gothically intriguing Lilith works really well, Steven Weber's performance as Samael is a bit overdone.

And the actor and actress who play the young stranded couple give an up and down performance, basically shining sometimes, while fading into obscurity at others. This isn't a gore flick, so genre fans expecting lots of gore, hacking, slashing, and blood-letting are gonna be disappointed. This movie is very dark and moody, but it's not super-violent. Although once the story hits act three, and then unleashes it's big reveal, the fact that it wasn't super-graphic in it's violence aspects doesn't hurt it too much at all.

But this is a movie which truly shows it knows how to end a film on a powerful, shocking, and disturbing note. And genre fans should be pretty surprised by the finale, Even if you had things halfway figured out as I did. "The Farmhouse" is a slow moving picture which will entertain those who like a slow, methodic, melodic, and dark story. For those looking for a hardcore violence-fest though, you might wanna look elsewhere.

Positives:Good peformance by Kelly Hu, the story is unfolded in a really challenging and intelligent fashion, a great twist ending.

Negatives:Beyond Hu's performance, most of the other performances aren't that great.

Overall:Two and a half out of four stars.





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