Round the Decay is the latest indie film from writer and director Adam Newman (Everwinter Night) and takes the form of a creature feature with a large ensemble cast. With my screener of this film, I also received a note saying that the version I watched for review wasn't the complete version, with VFX being worked on, the sound mix not in its final form, and the monsters voice not finalised. As a result, I won't let those elements effect my thoughts in this review.
After a short prologue in which early American settlers reveal they have summoned a monster as revenge against the ingenious population, the story moves to present day. The remote town of Newport has fallen on hard times, with tourism down, something that Bart (Cary Hite), the new owner of the local hotel hopes to remedy. Also in the area are a group of young adults, who have came to climb the nearby hillside. Unfortunately for them, they stumble across an abandoned mine which happens to be the home of a monstrous creature called the Wrexsoul (Rachel Pizzolato), the same creature that had been summoned in the prologue. Added to the mix are a group of redneck hunters who seem intent on capturing the young friends, and the shady townsfolk who seem to know more about what is going on than they initially let on.
There were a large cast of characters here that on the one hand meant lots could be happening concurrently, but also had the downside of making it hard to remember who was who. Key characters for me where Munroe (Damian Maffei - The Strangers: Prey at Night), a monster hunter from out of town who serves as a device for the viewer to have the backstory of the creature explained in a somewhat natural feeling way. Other highlights were Gregory Newport (Jamie Dufault) as a descendent of one of the founding fathers of the town, and the frat boy styled slightly loveable idiot James 'Muffin' Ford (Jay Voishnis - Everwinter Night). With so many characters to be found in the film, it did take a while to get going properly. The first forty five minutes were more mysterious, with the various groups discovering strange things on their own. The monster itself didn't appear until the forty five minute mark, but with an hour left to go still, it meant that plenty of this creature was shown.
The Wrexsoul did look like someone wearing a monster costume, but I thought it had a cool design to the mask part of the suit. I also thought it was really cool that the monster was able to speak, but only by mimicking the words of people it had encountered. Despite this limitation, it uses this ability to have some basic communication with the protagonists at times. There were plenty of death scenes, and featured a pleasing amount of blood and gore squirting out everywhere. One later scene featured a whole cast of characters being attacked, it did make for a thrilling sequence, but the vibe was ruined slightly by it being obvious actors were just running backwards and forwards in front of the camera, rather than feeling like the characters were trying to flee the location they were in! The special effects were one of the highlights of Round the Decay, despite the not so stellar monster costume, the action scenes were exciting and well choreographed with pleasing effects used.
I couldn't help but feel that nearly the first half of this horror felt a bit longer than it needed to be. The film rapidly improved once the horror finally properly started, making me wish more of the movie had been as interesting. I felt that there were maybe too many characters hanging around to try and find a time to explain their particular backstory to the viewers, though the large cast also led to a large body count. Round the Decay came to theatres on January 31st from Dreamscape Productions.
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