Known in its native Lithuania as Rupintojelis (Caregiver), this is at once a teen drama, a folk horror and a slasher and when it leans into the latter, it goes all the way. Once known as Pensive, the new title is a much better explanation of what happens in this shocker.
After their graduation party location gets canceled, a group of teens are saved by Marius (Sarunas Rapolas Meliesius), who has been one of the more misunderstood and unpopular students. His mother has an empty property that she's been trying to sell forever and he knows where she keeps the keys. It seems like the perfect strategy to get his crush, Brigita (Gabija Bargailaite), all alone.
Sounds like a teen sex comedy, maybe? Well, when the students arrive, there are statues all over the property, wooden figures that one of them claims are representations of grief and loss, as the last person to live here lost his family in a fire, which led to his suicide. When they go inside, the walls are covered with black soot. Yes, people died here.
Let's party?
Once the drink starts to flow, someone gets the idea to destroy the statues. But those pieces of wooden remembrance have a caretaker willing to give out the same treatment to flesh that has been visited upon wood.
The difference with nearly every other slasher that you've ever seen is that these aren't disposable teens. Some of them are quite nice. But just because they're at the house and were around when the statues were defaced, they must all pay.
If this were the 80s, Hollywood would hire director Jonas Trukanas (who co-wrote the script with Titas Laucius) and have him direct the next sequel in a horror franchise. As it is, the wood-masked charred caretaker named Algis (Marius Repsys) just might be a better Cropsy than the one that shows up in The Burning. It also takes most of the things that you expect from a traditional slasher, references them and then throws them into a blender where they come up bloody and unrecognizable yet perfect in their new execution.
This is a movie to get excited about.
After their graduation party location gets canceled, a group of teens are saved by Marius (Sarunas Rapolas Meliesius), who has been one of the more misunderstood and unpopular students. His mother has an empty property that she's been trying to sell forever and he knows where she keeps the keys. It seems like the perfect strategy to get his crush, Brigita (Gabija Bargailaite), all alone.
Sounds like a teen sex comedy, maybe? Well, when the students arrive, there are statues all over the property, wooden figures that one of them claims are representations of grief and loss, as the last person to live here lost his family in a fire, which led to his suicide. When they go inside, the walls are covered with black soot. Yes, people died here.
Let's party?
Once the drink starts to flow, someone gets the idea to destroy the statues. But those pieces of wooden remembrance have a caretaker willing to give out the same treatment to flesh that has been visited upon wood.
The difference with nearly every other slasher that you've ever seen is that these aren't disposable teens. Some of them are quite nice. But just because they're at the house and were around when the statues were defaced, they must all pay.
If this were the 80s, Hollywood would hire director Jonas Trukanas (who co-wrote the script with Titas Laucius) and have him direct the next sequel in a horror franchise. As it is, the wood-masked charred caretaker named Algis (Marius Repsys) just might be a better Cropsy than the one that shows up in The Burning. It also takes most of the things that you expect from a traditional slasher, references them and then throws them into a blender where they come up bloody and unrecognizable yet perfect in their new execution.
This is a movie to get excited about.
