No Reason is an indie slasher film that features an exclusively black cast. Directed and written by Carla Saunders, this horror film falls to the reliably inexpensive setting of a wood. The way it is paced, and the back and forth way the events of the film are shown, along with an underwhelming antagonist combine to make something that squanders some of its potential.
Four friends have arranged to go on a weekend camping vacation out in some remote woodland, and even after one of them, Brian (Karras Jordan) doesn't show, they still decide to go. Unknown to the group, Brian has fallen foul of a twisted killer, someone who has followed the group on their trip, with the aim of picking them off one by one.
At nearly exactly an hour long, No Reason just about falls into feature length territory. Even with a relatively short length, this takes a while to get going, with the first on-screen kill not occurring until nearly forty minutes into its run time. There was an enjoyable enough set up, with it seeming likely that the friends odd acquaintance, Rodney (Cortez Woods), is the one responsible for the horror they stumble into. From when the trip begins however the film begins to follow a non-linear path that made events a bit confusing to follow. The first on-screen interaction between the killer and their prey isn't actually the first time the friends encounter them, as a flashback reveals stuff had happened earlier. This creates a bit of a mysterious narrative, with little signs pointing to many different possibilities, even that it might all be going on in a character's mind, rather than literally happening.
The killer has a sadly underwhelming look to them, dressed in back clothes, wearing a black hoody, it doesn't take much effort to work out who the killer's identity is. Nor is there any explanation for their motives when it is revealed, or any sort of conclusion to the tale. This leads to lots of scenes of frightened people running around screaming in woodland, without a real feeling of threat. The few kill scenes are fine enough, nothing spectacular, but there is a bit of blood at one point. A decent enough fight sequence at one point also, in which each punch shown has the film slow down for a few moments to create physical impact of the punches.
After a couple of decent acts, the finale is where this mainly fell down for me. A random hooded figure chasing people around woods didn't make for the most thrilling of films, especially factoring in the low amount of on-screen deaths. If some of those early kills had actually been shown rather than inferred, perhaps that could have increased the slightly slow pace. As much as the killer's actions aren't explained, I guess this matches the film's title of 'No Reason', though it did feel there was an actual reason, just not one explained to the viewer. I liked the attempt to split up the main story with frequent flashbacks to the recent past, but those moments never seemed to really reveal anything essential, and just served at leaving me a little confused. It might have actually been better just to show the events of the film in a more logical format. This wasn't all bad however, it felt fresh to have an all black cast, and there were some decent enough horror moments mixed in, even if for me personally, the prologue sequence was the very best the film had to offer.
No Reason was released by BayView Entertainment on EST/VOD/SVOD Digital in North America on 28th November 2023, and came to AVOD on 1st January.
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