In The Deep Guilty Woods: Dark Windows (2023)

Dark Windows (US/Norway, 2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Rory Alexander, Vanessa Borgli, Anna Bullard

After uneasily attending the wake of their friend Ali, who passed away from a fatal car crash they're all involved in, friends Tilly, Peter and Monica decides to retreat to a country house owned by one of their grandparents to recuperate and grief in their own way as they let matters back home settle down. The stay was rocky at first with Tilly still blaming herself for the crash as she's supposedly the one driving that night, Peter downing himself with booze to numb his guilt much to the worry of his two friends, and Monica is more or less rushing to move on by acting as normal as possible, but honoring the memory of Ali and for the sake of their own friendship, the trio forgives one another and do their best to unwind from all the trouble and celebrate their late-friend's life by simply enjoying one another's company.

This is basically the story of Dark Windows (2023) for the first half; a whole lot of character building and melodramatics, practically slow-burning its way to the cat-and-mouse theatrics and, frankly, I dig it. The acting is spot-on and the writing has soul to it, making the characters likeable yet flawed as we do get to know how much of the car crash was indeed their fault and how the guilt of this fact is eating them inside despite the varying kind of brave faces they're putting on. This conflict makes the cast human, sanctioning cathartic outcomes as the film slowly builds its tension by the time our three friends would soon learn to their horror that somebody else have made their way to the farmhouse.

It starts with recordings of Ali's voice uttering familiar phrases from the night of the accident getting played at random times. And then the sound of shuffling around the house. Next a shrine dedicated to their late-friend is suddenly changed to reflect an ominous promise of their own deaths, not to mention the horrifying fact that none of them even made the shrine to begin with! Once an arm shot out of a window to grab a handful of one of the girls' hair, the three have no choice but to try and survive the night as the intruder prowls and brutes their way into getting them, undoubtedly in revenge to what happened to Ali. 

These resulting attacks are very much ripe with well-crafted tension and suspense as the three try to plan out their escape not knowing whether the masked villain is still inside the house or out there waiting for them to make a run for it. Interestingly, not a lot of kills were committed during the backwoods home invasion (save for one accidental fatal braining), rather a lot of brutalizing and capturing were done instead and the murders were only set in the end through a more torturous affair as the killer go through the victims one by one while they're bound in chairs. The casualties are rather low in number due to the fact that the focus group is also relatively small, but it has heft since we did get to know these victims-to-be, plus the overall gloom atmosphere hanging throughout the film simply adds to the effectively depressing beat of the scene. Honestly, it's not an easy sight to sit through, no matter how unique some of the kills can get. 

By the end of it, Dark Windows (2023) is a slasher flick that mostly earns its slow-burn approach; the characters have depth, the scares and thrills have a good punch to them, and the all-in-all direction has quality to it. The only thing I'm sure will divide its audience is its ending which may either leave them feeling too pessimistic from the whole ordeal, or feeling lacking as it kinda ended abruptly just when the tension was getting real high. Personally, despite it missing the benefits of a good stalk 'n stab approach and maybe even a higher bodycount, this movie is pretty alright for a bleak horror outing, just expect nobody is getting out of this flick 'okay'... 

Bodycount:

1 female implied killed in a car crash

1 male bludgeoned on the face with a baseball bat

1 male had his head bagged and filled with vodka, drowned

1 female had her arms shattered with a hammer, neck broken

Total: 4