Everwinter Night is a comedy horror film that was directed and co-written by Adam Newman. It shows some promise with its interesting set-up, but a raft of unlikeable characters and a very slow build up to the horror breaking out meant this felt longer than it needed to be.
V (Victoria Mirrer) has arranged to meet up with her best friend Maddy (McKenna Parsons) for a weekend getaway at a remote cabin together. Things soon take a turn for the worse when it is revealed that Maddy's insufferably annoying friends Becca (Alana Phillips) and Fiona (Nicolette Sweeney) have tagged along for the trip, something that Maddy had neglected to tell her bestie. The plans are changed further when Becca and Fiona befriend two rich guys who invite them all to a special annual weekend retreat happening at a different remote cabin. Against V's better judgement she agrees to the change in plans, and they all travel to this new location. While V's friends all soon integrate themselves with the eccentric young rich men and begin a weekend of partying she finds herself unable to, only striking up a friendship with the barman. As the weekend progresses, V feels uneasy and starts to become convinced that they might not have the best intentions for her friends.
V is correct of course, but the movie sure takes a long time getting to the reveal of what is going on. As the viewer we are shown immediately that there will be a promise of horror to come, with a prologue that takes place at the same location some twenty five years earlier in which a lost couple appear to be abducted. It is then over an hour into the one hour forty minute film before anything approaching horror begins. I felt this was far too long a time to be hanging out with mostly irritating characters. V was fine as a protagonist character, and remains the only character to not be happy with the situation. Her friends were awful characters, Becca and Fiona were terrible people, coming across as stereotypical 'girl squad' types, but Maddy was perhaps even worse, showing very little respect for her apparent best friend. Not all the characters were terrible though, I thought that barman Jack (Jamie Dufault) was a welcome break from the otherwise eccentric cast, and I thought that Erik (Chris Goodwin) was pretty fantastic as the film's antagonist. The leader of the group of rich bros, Erik speaks with an old fashioned accent, also acting in an old fashioned way. I wouldn't say the humour worked in the film for the most part, but one line later on relating to the way he acts did make me laugh out loud.
The last forty five minutes of this really elevated the film in my opinion. Once the obvious reveal is eventually made known it felt like the movie could finally breath, with the monotonous permanent party over, things get far more entertaining. I loved the special effects in this later part, without going too much into spoilers, I liked how the lighting and editing was used so that something well designed could never be glimpsed properly. The build-up to this could have been quicker, and the threat could have been more pronounced. Due to the on-going party taking place over several chapters of peril-free story it was hard to feel much concern for the protagonists when there is not really any sense of danger until deep into the movie. The first lengthy halve had some real low points, especially with relation to Fiona, her little subplot was awful and added nothing really to what was going on. The movie did have some good moments, typically relating to scenes Erik appeared in.
The humour wasn't always the best, but some of the rich men group had amusing moments, such as one of the men (Topher Hansson) locked into a text argument with his girlfriend that he desperately tries to continue even when things are going very wrong towards the end of the movie. I will say that I thought the soundtrack was good, the low-fi mellow music was a perfect fit for the first half, while the change to horror also introduced a decent accompanying soundtrack to those later moments.
Everwinter Night did have glimpses of greatness, especially within its third act. There needed to be more of a sense of peril in the first two acts though, it felt like the story was trapped treading water until the eventual reveal of what was happening. Following a bunch of annoying characters didn't make for the most engaging movie, but I'm glad there were at least a couple of good ones, such as Erik, whose out of time presence added a lot. Everwinter Night can currently be viewed on Tubi.
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