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With the 2020 American election only days away, a sextet of liberals of
diverse ethnic background - Lily (Kathryn Erbe), Cassandra (Tonya
Pinkins), Rocky (Rubén Blades), Emelia (Luba Mason), Nick (Jake
O'Flaherty), and Bobby (Adesola A. Osakalumi) - travel deep into rural
Virginia for a bit of partying at a rented house, and blissfully ignore
all of the red flags, from the deeply racist sign by the side of the road
to the noose in the barn, to the creepy uniforms of the local (white)
women. Only Cassandra interprets all of this as tell-tale signs of an
active white supremacy movement, but she's labeled as alarmist and her
pleas to turn back ignored. Then after a night of partying, Bobby
disapppears - but maybe that's just because he was roaringly drunk the
previous night. Searching the area though shows no clue of him. What's
worse, the friends lose their car keys, find they have no cell reception,
and thus are basically stuck here - and then they are attacked by locals
with bow and arrow. The attack kills Rocky while the others manage to
barricade themselves inside the house. The problem is though, the locals
don't relie just on bows and arrows but also have high tech weapons like
sniper rifles with target lasers at their disposal. And it becomes more
and more clear they have plans for our heroes more sinister than just
killing them ... A very inspired blend of horror motives and
socio-political commentary, and one that works, too, because it stays
clear of just preaching to the converted but takes its horror aspects
seriously and richly delivers when it comes to suspense and scares and
cleverly weaves its theme - the threat of white supremacists - into its
genre context. And a genre savvy directorial effort and a strong ensemble
make this into one cool piece of genre cinema that's as intelligent as it
is effective.
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