Day 13: Movie Review

"Day 13" is literally a tale of two halves. The first forty five minutes was an absolute blast as it was able to grab onto its premise quite well and got our full attention. But halfway through, the narrative just got weirder and weirder and the film just breaks down on its own as it was unable to hang onto its very surreal ideas.

Colton was hoping he would have the house by himself as his mom takes a two week vacation abroad. But unfortunately, he instead finds himself stuck watching his little sister. His summer has been uneventful until he notices something strange in the old abandoned house across the street. Two people just moved in - a young 16-year-old girl and a mysterious and intimidating old man. When Colton musters the courage to introduce himself to the young woman named Heather, he feels that there is something off - specifically that Heather might be the victim of child abuse. Even crazier, Colton suspects her father is into the satanic arts and is preparing to do something unspeakably awful to Heather. Colton must find a way to save Heather before anything deadly happens to her.

Our biggest grievance for "Day 13" was its writing. We could describe it in so many ways but ultimately it was just unpolished. Even without its surreal elements, there were a lot of head scratching moments littered in the story. The biggest of all was how Colton seemed to forget time and time again that he had a little sister to watch over. He was literally obsessed with his neighbor that he did not notice that his sister was already missing overnight. And this shoddy writing reflected everywhere and it tended to show up significantly in the second half of the film were it decided to unveil its supernatural nature. The film just unraveled in a very ugly way with the finale turning into a complete bust best suited in a SyFy release. But all was not bad in "Day 13". We were very impressed with the camera work and cinematography of Director Jax Medel that gave the film a serious mysterious and enticing vibe in its first 45 minutes. Another surprise was the acting of lead actor Alex MacNicoll who gave his very limiting character Colton so much more life. Overall, "Day 13" left us disappointed as it had scenes that showed it had a lot of potential - it just went too crazy for its own sake.

Rating: 2 reels





Why you should watch it:
- the camera work gave the film an enticing vibe in its first half

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the shoddy writing ruined the film literally