Bornless Ones, 2016.
Written and Directed by Alexander Babaev.
Starring Margaret Judson, David Goodsell, Michael Johnston, Mark Furze, and Bobby T.
SYNOPSIS:
A young woman and her partner move into a recently bought home in the woods to care for her brother who has cerebral palsy. As they and two friends set about renovating the home, a collection of evil spirits threatens to undo all their work and life itself…
Bornless Ones takes the familiar trope of the perils of moving home and has fun with the tried and setup. Billing itself as something akin to Evil Dead is a tall order, especially when there isn’t that much in the way of laughs in this movie, but nevertheless it’s a reasonably enjoyable slice of possessed hokum and siege mentality craziness.
The film starts off with Emily (Margaret Judson) and her boyfriend moving into their new home out in the woods with her teen brother Zack (Michael Johnston). After meeting an over ebullient estate agent who is a little too eager to hand over the keys, the three are joined by some friends to help clear out the cabin. To add to Emily’s travails she also cares for Zack who has been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and requires round the clock attention. If it wasn’t apparent enough that a log cabin far out in the woods may not be the best place to look after someone with complex medical demands, it becomes even clearer when malevolent spirits begin to take over the personalities and motivations of those in the cabin.
Ticking many well-known boxes of supernatural horror, with possession and arcane symbols mixing it up with bodily mutilation, originality is not an obvious strength of Bornless Ones. It is also fairly slow in building up to the actual horror, which is not really a criticism as such as the relationship stresses of a young couple completely out of their depth is intriguing in such a clichéd horror setting. However, the ideal target audience would probably prefer the gross outs and the blood spill to start a bit quicker than this, so it could be argued it’s somewhat misjudged.
In any case, the film manages to pack a lot into its 80 minute time span, and there are some reasonably strong performances, most notably from Judson and Johnston as the brother and sister who have to work together in order to fight the evil. Possibly a metaphor for the permanent condition that Zack suffers from, the spirits that take over are lacking in any discernible identity – this unfortunately fails to create many genuine scares and showcases a lack of definition in the film. An interesting enough distraction for the horror fan, but no more than that.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk is a freelance journalist and film writer.
Originally published February 8, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
