Reaptown (2020) (USA)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

On a work-release program as a night shift security guard for a rail yard in Nevada’s Reaptown, Carrie spends her free time looking for her missing sister. The opening shows a woman arrive for her first day of training and navigating the creepy-ass building while following the sound of a baby wailing. Making it to the source, a specter jumps her and that’s that. There’s a reporter looking into a troubling amount of missing women who all have the work-release program in Reaptown as their final proof of life. So yeah, shit ain’t right in Reaptown. Cassie starts her shift in the same program her sister disappeared partaking in and gets to her rounds on the spooky property. It’s dark and somewhat otherworldly as she walks around, carrying a single flashlight with no other human in sight. Strange shadows pop up on her first night and the whole situation seems a bit off but she makes it through in one piece. She gets a troubling phone call the next day from a stranger who saw her putting up “Missing” posters and is warned she is in danger and that she’s better off just breaking her parole. Even with the unease growing, Cassie stays because finding her sister is of the utmost importance. Of course, as we all know here, digging too deep leads to nothing but trouble. There’s evil on-site and said evil is feeding on those poor young women that usually have nobody to miss them. The cold, dead setting works to the film’s advantage and establishes a pleasantly uneasy vibe but the troubled childhood flashbacks and pointless jump-cuts don’t work at all and take the viewer out of things whenever they pop up. Luckily, it ain’t that often and the rest of the film may be slow-going but I was intrigued and maybe even a little shook. The boogeyman is a simple design and kept in the dark so it works pretty damn well and the lead is more than adequate which is important because it’s mostly a one-woman show. The ending sucks a little but I’m a bit more forgiving of that shit when the majority of everything that preceded worked so well. Another winner from Dutch Marich who unleashed one of my surprise favorites of 2021 with Horror in the High Desert.