Sunday, September 24, 2023

The Wait (2023) Fantastic Fest


Director F. Javier Gutierrez's THE WAIT is a genre bending film  that never quite nails down what it wants to be. 

The film is the story of a man who is hired to take care of a vast hunting estate. He is suppose to keep the property divided into a certain number of sections so that the various hunting parties don't end up shooting each other. Bribed to increase the number of runs, tragedy strikes in rapid order as his son is killed and his wife commits suicide. Left to his own devices weird things begin to happen.

An odd mix of genres, western, horror, drama, THE WAIT never fully finds it's footing. Is it a look at grief? Is it a balls to the wall horror film? It doesn't seem to know. More damaging is that the film has an uneven pace. The early section setting everything up is incredibly slow and if you don't click the film can be hard to warm to. Worse our protagonist is a man of few words and limited expressions and we really don't know what is going on inside him.

Mind you the film isn't bad, it has some great horror sequences, but you can't help but wonder if this could have been better.

despite my reservation fans of Euro-horror should give it a shot.

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