Alison's Birthday

Like the movie does, I won’t bury the lede here. Alison’s Birthday has a critical flaw: it makes no attempt to hide what the plot of the movie is, but it insists on trying to build a slow-burn atmosphere of dread anyway. The movie embodies the old adage of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing; every plot element and twist couldn’t be more hidden if the viewer was given notes, but the movie also plays out like every twist and turn are some amazing revelation. I kept waiting for something, anything, to catch me off guard, and when it didn’t … well, I wasn’t surprised by that either. Technically, the movie is fine, but the dissonance at its heart prevents any investment one might put into it. And that’s before the deflating ending. Australia has some damned good horror movies — Housebound and The Loved Ones, for instance — but this ain’t one of them.