VOD from the Dead Review: BRIGHT HILL ROAD (2020)
VOD from the Dead Review: BRIGHT HILL ROAD (2020)
Regret is one of the few sentiments that we don’t want an abundance of. I’m not talking about regret in the “FOMO” sense, but existential regret. Where we mourn what we didn’t do, say, see, taste, and more during our relatively short time alive so much that it makes us feel that our life has somehow not reached its full potential. It’s a heavy thought, and it’s a thought that all of us at one point or another will have. From personal experience, the worst kind of regret is the kind that directly or indirectly affected someone besides yourself. People regret all kinds of things that impact others. The way you treated someone in school, to something you said to a family member, and more all can be filed under things we might regret. If we are lucky though, we won’t have to face the kind of regret that Marcy does when she takes a detour down BRIGHT HILL ROAD.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Marcy (SIOBHAN WILLIAMS) is an alcoholic who works in Human Resources. She’s miserable, and beyond the point of doing a good job hiding it. Her alcoholism ultimately causes her termination, for an extremely dark reason, where she effectively reaches the proverbial “rock bottom”. Her desperation turns to salvation as she decides to road trip it out to visit her sister and get herself sober. This journey inevitably takes her down a detour that sidelines her at titular “Bright Hill Road Boarding House”, a deceptively quaint and eerie inn she cannot seem to leave from. All the while her say at the Bright Hill Road Boarding House is rife with fever dreams, hallucinations, and haunting images that test Marcy’s resolve as she struggles to understand what is happening to her.
Marcy (SIOBHAN WILLIAMS) is not having a great day…
HOW IS IT?
Psychological horror movies are hard to get right. For my money, it all comes down to if the movie makes the viewer feel as surprised and confused as the character is, and if the resolution clears up enough of that confusion for the viewer to get it. That’s just one opinion, but the point is that BRIGHT HILL ROAD gets it. As I write this review and look back on my notes I realize just how many different threads are introduced, and how my questions about them all were answered by the end. The sense of closure is something that I value deeply in movies like BRIGHT HILL ROAD because more often than not those narrative threads often form plot knots that plague the film and leave the viewer with lingering questions about story arcs that don’t reach their final destination. This is a good thing since BRIGHT HILL ROAD throws a lot at you to start, and slowly piles it on after the shocking introduction. It’s not until the end that you see that meticulous tension and mystery building pay their full dividends, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was a payoff. There is a trend in recent horror films to leave things ambiguous, which has become as commonplace today as the “killers not dead” trope that concludes 93% of slasher films. Thankfully that is not the case here.
Marcy (SIOBHAN WILLIAMS) and Owen (MICHAEL EKLUND) both regret not checking out this inn on Yelp first
The scares here are mostly courtesy of a few scenes early on that make us wonder if Marcy is just detoxing or if she is actually seeing things that aren’t there. As we are introduced to another guest, Owen (MICHAEL EKLUND), at the Bright Hill Road Boarding House we get some added creepiness from his presence as someone who is certainly hiding something. The way he is tied into this is clever, especially since there is more to him than lets on from the start. Mrs. Inman (AGAM DARHSI), the overseer of the boarding house, is really the only other character we see throughout the film. Her presence is mostly there to give Marcy someone to interact with, and I found some of her motives to be counter to what her intended purpose ultimately is.
The script and direction are quite good, but the performance from Siobhan Williams is a standout on this indie production. Marcy is a frustrating and rather unlikeable character, so the fact that the performance from Siobhan gets you to care about her at all is a testament to how effective she is as Marcy. Director ROBERT CUFFLEY handles the material well and keeps the action moving along at a reasonable pace avoiding the dreaded sagging 2nd act of a slow burn, and that’s no doubt in part to the intriguing script from SUSIE MOLONEY. The supporting performances are good as well, and if I had any gripes with the movie it all is was the amount of trauma heaped on the character of Marcy. Without going into specifics, by the end of BRIGHT HILL ROAD, you find yourself wondering how Marcy made it this with all that emotional baggage she had been carrying around with her. This doesn’t detract from the satisfaction and closure I describe above, it more just makes the character of Marcy feel less sympathetic and more sociopathic.
Marcy (SIOBHAN WILLIAMS) really wishes they would stop calling her about her car’s extended warranty
LAST RITES
BRIGHT HILL ROAD succeeds in delivering suspense and tension as it ratchets towards a conclusive and overall satisfying ending. It isn’t without some faults to be sure, it is nonetheless one of the more admirable psychological horror films of late with strong performances from Siobhan Williams and a clever story that unfolds in an engaging way.
THE GORY DETAILS
Directed By: ROBERT CUFFLEY
Written By: SUSIE MOLONEY
Starring:
SIOBHAN WILLIAMS (Marcy)
MICHAEL EKLUND (Owen)
AGAM DARHSI (Mrs. Inman)
Runtime: Approx. 92 minutes
Where can you watch it?
ON DEMAND, DVD AND DIGITAL including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Xbox, Vudu, Dish Network, and all major cable providers on January 12, 2021
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