After a wild night of partying, a woman and her friend come across a strange doll in the desert which draws them into a nightmarish series of hauntings by the ghostly owner of the doll and must uncover the sinister origins behind its appearance to leave the mystery behind them.
Overall, this was a decent enough if somewhat problematic genre effort. One of the better elements here is the way this works with the build-up of the spirit's presence in the family. The first half here dealing with the friend group interacting with the party and her home life signals the discovery of the doll and how it's affecting her giving this a solid start. There's some fun to be had with the idea of the town's superstitions figuring into the events to write it off and the intrusion on their lives and how it's obvious something is wrong that gives everything its impact. As this comes off the way it does, the second half bringing about the start of the hauntings is all rather enjoyable like the rest of those kinds of genre efforts. Since we're graced with an appropriately creepy backstory for the ghostly figure and its equally chilling appearance of it, the scenes where it appears and torments or even outright kills others in fine sequences that makes its supernatural powers felt, giving this plenty of somewhat suspenseful attacks. Even the idea of how to stop the ghost is fun, having several solid connections to its backstory and being rather fun which gives this a lot to like. There are some issues here that bring this one down. Among the biggest drawbacks to this one is the overly familiar setup and storyline that makes this feel quite predictable. Working as a straightforward throwback to this style of Asian ghost movie featuring the wronged spirit coming back and haunting those who get caught up in its path. There's not much in the way of deviation taking place here as it runs along this type of story and makes it quite easy to see the beats coming for easy predictability, lessening the tension somewhat. The other drawback here is that there's not much in the way of action for long stretches of the running time leading to some moments where it plods along. Several of the sideplots here, with the friends' home life being quite troublesome and outright abusive is an angle that doesn't need all the time devoted to it that it does, and several parts of the investigation lead to characters meeting up several times over so they can come off redundant. The repeated nature of the genre setup comes into play as well, making this come down from where it should be.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, drug use, and children-in-jeopardy.
Overall, this was a decent enough if somewhat problematic genre effort. One of the better elements here is the way this works with the build-up of the spirit's presence in the family. The first half here dealing with the friend group interacting with the party and her home life signals the discovery of the doll and how it's affecting her giving this a solid start. There's some fun to be had with the idea of the town's superstitions figuring into the events to write it off and the intrusion on their lives and how it's obvious something is wrong that gives everything its impact. As this comes off the way it does, the second half bringing about the start of the hauntings is all rather enjoyable like the rest of those kinds of genre efforts. Since we're graced with an appropriately creepy backstory for the ghostly figure and its equally chilling appearance of it, the scenes where it appears and torments or even outright kills others in fine sequences that makes its supernatural powers felt, giving this plenty of somewhat suspenseful attacks. Even the idea of how to stop the ghost is fun, having several solid connections to its backstory and being rather fun which gives this a lot to like. There are some issues here that bring this one down. Among the biggest drawbacks to this one is the overly familiar setup and storyline that makes this feel quite predictable. Working as a straightforward throwback to this style of Asian ghost movie featuring the wronged spirit coming back and haunting those who get caught up in its path. There's not much in the way of deviation taking place here as it runs along this type of story and makes it quite easy to see the beats coming for easy predictability, lessening the tension somewhat. The other drawback here is that there's not much in the way of action for long stretches of the running time leading to some moments where it plods along. Several of the sideplots here, with the friends' home life being quite troublesome and outright abusive is an angle that doesn't need all the time devoted to it that it does, and several parts of the investigation lead to characters meeting up several times over so they can come off redundant. The repeated nature of the genre setup comes into play as well, making this come down from where it should be.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, drug use, and children-in-jeopardy.