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BLACKWATER LANE (2024)
3 stars
Plaion Pictures. Digital Download. 27th January
Based on the book ‘The Breakdown’ by B.A. Paris, the film opens with a drone shot of a large house. The camera prowls through the grounds. An idyllic spot. It enters the building, up the stairs, past the man asleep in bed. A woman seated on the floor reading tarot cards. A bird slams itself into the window. The music infers something chilling. Can the film deliver on this setup… seems unlikely?
Cass Anderson (Minka Kelly) is an American teaching at a posh British school. Term is over for the holiday. Drinks at the pub. On the way home there is a bad storm with driving rain. She decides to take the short cut through the woods along the titular lane and she sees something – a car stopped by the side of the road with a woman in it.
Next day, her husband Matthew (Dermot Mulroney), tells her a woman was found dead on that route, and it was being treated as suspicious. Soon after, Cass starts to see odd things and she gets random phone calls with nobody on the other end. Strange noises in the big house where they live (which is supposedly haunted). She begins to freak out. Is it supernatural? Or something else? It’s inferred that she has had mental health issues and that her Mum had died from dementia. Could it be hallucinations?
Some good locations in Suffolk, including Framlingham which I used to visit as a child, add production values to this okay mystery thriller with horror leanings. Kelly is fine in the lead, if a little bland, and Mulroney is wasted. Maggie Grace pops up as Rachel, best friend of Cass. There are some jump scares, mainly caused by loud noises on the soundtrack. The score by Nathan Halpern is clichéd and it is fairly obvious where this is heading plotwise, especially if you have seen many of these kinds of movies masquerading as supernatural chillers, with women doubting their sanity.
Steve Kirkham
