An isolated family of
Women, ruled over by wrathful father Bruce Davison, encounter temptation in a wildly unconvincing tale
Nothing else in this schlocky horror-thriller comes anywhere close to matching its cheerfully grotesque opening. Harold, a white-bearded Bible-quoting hellfire fanatic (played by Bruce Davison), is presiding over a last supper; his wife and teenage daughters look terrified. After they’ve finished, he tells them that the wine was poisoned – they should prepare to meet their maker. Except it turns out not to be true. The whole thing is a sick test of the women’s submissiveness to him, their lord and master (though there is nothing godly about the way he squeezes his daughter’s knee). It is the last genuine moment of actual tension in this silly, derivative and wildly unconvincing film.
Harold and his family live cut off from the modern world on a farm 30 miles from their closest neighbour. They dress in simple homemade clothes like the Amish and, crucially for the plot, don’t have a phone, a car or even a horse). Harold’s wife Betty (Arianne Zucker) and his eldest daughter Sarah (Rita Volk) are true believers, but the script is thunderingly uncurious about how they might be identifying with him as their abuser. Daughter number two, Maggie (Holly Taylor), reads books so we know she’s going to be trouble. When a trio of young guys knock at the door – their car has broken down – Maggie sees her chance to escape.