The Unfamiliar Review: Should You Stream It or Skip It?

This is a guest contribution from Keith Langston.

It’s important to give independent horror a chance. Without new filmmakers trying new things, horror would be nothing but Friday The 13th: Part 57. More importantly, some of the best horror films in history have been from independent filmmakers – The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, just to name a few.

Unfortunately, the new film, The Unfamiliar, which is available on digital platforms from August 21st, is not destined to be an indie classic. I was excited for The Unfamiliar from the trailer, which made it seem like a woman suffering from PTSD was experiencing a haunting. I thought it would be so interesting to play with the concept of “Is this a haunting? Or mental illness?” I was excited for a new paranormal movie that would break the mold.

This movie broke the mold alright, not to mention it also broke just about every rule of good film making along with it. I’m not into spoilers, so I’ll be brief with the plot.

The Trailer

Storyline

Basically, the mom with PTSD starts experiencing paranormal phenomena. Then, she sees a ghost. But it was actually an actress –paid by a fake medium to fool people? And then her husband is all into Hawaiian voodoo. But her husband isn’t her husband?

Also, she has a daughter…but her daughter isn’t really her daughter? There’s this whole body-switching thing. Like, a killer killed a family, but then put himself (and his family that he killed) inside the PTSD mom’s family…through Hawaiian voodoo. And then some Hawaii voodoo priestess (dressed like a Native American why?????) shows up to save the day.

But in the end, we learn that the daughter wasn’t possessed by a person, but a demon? How? Nobody really knows. And the son knew about this the whole time…but never told his mom. And the Hawaiian priestess has to sacrifice herself to the demon to save the white family. Honestly, I don’t fully know what happened in this movie, and that is a very bad thing.

The film feels like an amateur director with rich friends was able to make his movie a reality – despite the fact that it was poorly written, not scary, and by 2020 standards, very racist.

However, this is not to say that The Unfamiliar won’t have its audience. Genre fans who love body-switching stories might be (but probably won’t be) intrigued by this movie. Also, the lead actress, Jemima West, gives a powerful performance. In fact, her performance was the only thing that kept me watching. It’s clear that she’s a promising actress with a bright career ahead of her.

Rating

All in all, I’d give this movie one skull. I hate giving movies bad reviews, but with this movie, I was tempted to turn off the movie multiple times. Save your money and your time and skip The Unfamiliar.

For More Info

Visit: https://www.darkmatter.studio/

About the Author

Keith David Langston currently writes for Travel Channel, Screen Rant, and Passport Magazine. He’s also an adventurer, film buff, geography nerd, and tea drinker. Follow him on Twitter: @Keith_From_Ohio.

Keith Langston

Keith Langston is a writer, reporter, and adventurer whose work has appeared in People, Entertainment Weekly, Lonely Planet, and Screen Rant, just to name a few. To learn more, visit his website.