It's the summer holidays - and teenaged Colton (Alex MacNicoll) is pretty much confined to his home to babysit his little sister Rachel (Meyrick Murphy). So it's no wonder that his mind starts to wonder and he's showing more and more interest into the house across the street that has been empty for years, but for the last few nights lights have gone on and off in the house. Colton is curious enough to invest quite a bit of money into surveillance equipment to see what's going on - and then he bumps into lovely Heather (Genevieve Hannelius), a girl his age who has apparently just moved into said house with her foster father Magnus Torvald (Martin Kove). The two take an instant liking into one another, but when Colton tries to ask her out, she turns him down, claiming her dad to be very strict. Being turned down though makes Colton only more curious about what's going on next door, and what he sees via his surveillance cameras suggests it's nothing good. Also, Heather doesn't say it outright but drops hints there's something going on, and reports trom yesteryear suggest that the house has once been the location of Satanic rituals. When he breaks into the house on a fact-finding mission - with his ass being saved by Heather when her father almost catches him red-handed - he collects plenty of evidence regarding something weird ... but when he reports it to the police, Torvald manages to turn the blame around and threatens Colton with a restraining order. So Colton, seconded by his best friend Michael (JT Palmer), decides to go on a rescue mission - thing is, he has no idea what to expect, and whatever it is, how to fight it ...

If you've read above synopsis and felt a bit reminded of Rear Window, I can't really blame you, as the premise is similar, if rather nicely woven into the context of teenage love. However, Day 13 pretty soon leaves the all-too-familiar path of Hitchcock's classic to tell a tale of dark horror, and one that leaves you in the dark about what's real and what not till the very end (another parallel to Hitchcock's movie there) while telling its tale with a maximum on tension and atmosphere with a few well-placed shocks and much of the terror hidden in the subtext. The result is a very solid horror flick that well deserves a watch.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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