- Directed by Alison Locke
- Written by Alison Locke
- Stars Anna Gunn, Linus Roache, Janeane Garofalo
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PT367xlhNI
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was some very fine work done by only three actors. A lot of the horror comes from it being an awful series of events that are totally realistic. Painful to watch, but in a good way.
Synopsis
It’s a cold and snowy evening out in the woods. Darlene and Gretchen argue about cake for Christmas. It’s Darlene’s first time hosting Christmas in twenty years. It’s also the twentieth anniversary of Sally’s disappearance. Gretchen goes home to her house right across the street.
Darlene watches a video interview about Sally’s disappearance, and it’s clear that she’s not over it all yet. Darlene pours a drink– and credits roll.
There’s a knock at the door. It’s Darlene’s brother-in-law Jack; his car ran off the road a mile down the road. His visit was supposed to be a surprise; it’s been nineteen years since they’ve seen each other. He says he has a lot to make up for. She offers to let him spend the night and find a motel tomorrow.
They talk about old times. Apparently, Jack was cheating on Darlene’s sister Julie– with Darlene. He bailed on them all. The power goes out briefly– they’re having thundersnow. Jack asks what Darlene needs to “feel whole again” after the whole thing with Sally, but she says nothing, really. It’s been twenty years, after all. At the very least, she would want to know every single detail about what really happened.
She says she should have been there for Sally, but she was drunk at the time. She’s a recovering alcoholic, and she’s been having trouble with that recently.
Jack says he has to tell her something. Then he puts all the knives in the kitchen away. “Your car didn’t break down, did it? Nobody knows you’re here,” she asks. He wants to sit down and talk, and he brought zip ties in case she’s uncooperative. “You deserve to know the truth.”
He admits he killed Sally. He begins his story…
He saw Sally walking home from high school and picked her up in his truck. Sally had found her mother, Darlene, drunk, and was worried about her. He couldn’t help himself and started kissing her.
Darlene throws hot tea in Jack’s face and runs into the bathroom but can’t get the window open. He swears he didn’t come there to hurt her, and he just wants to tell his story. She puts a safety razor in her pocket and opens the door. He sees the razor and shows her his gun.
They go back to the kitchen and sit down for more of his story. Sally was sixteen, and she started screaming. He panicked and broke her neck accidentally while trying to keep her quiet. He shows her Sally’s French book to prove his story. He’s kept it all these years.
He says it was an accident, and if he’d told anyone, it would have ruined his life. He says Darlene is at least halfway responsible for being drunk all the time.
The power goes out, Darlene jumps on Jack in the dark, and she gets his gun. She leads him down into the basement. She zip-ties him to a chair with his own zip-ties.
She asks Jack where her daughter is buried, and he won’t say. She gives a long speech about what her life has been like all these years.
Then she decides to enact her “revenge fantasy.”She punches him a few times and then leaves him in the basement in the dark, which he doesn’t like. Darlene shoots Jack, sorta-kinda by accident, and Gretchen hears the shot outside.
Then she figures out that he wants her to kill him. At this point, he breaks out of the chair ties and grabs his gun back. He stalks her through the house, but his leg has been shot, so he’s slow. “Don’t make me kill you too,” he whines.
She knocks him out again and tries to tie him to the bed. Gretchen rushes in and helps. Darlene brings her up to speed on the evening. There’s a struggle, and Darlene knocks Jack down the stairs with a hockey stick.
Gretchen wants to call the police, but Darlene says that Jack hasn’t told her the whole story, and she wants to get the rest of the truth out of him first.
Jack wakes up, now secure with no possible escape, and Darlene says she wants the real story. He gives a lot more detail of the encounter with Sally, but the story still doesn’t sound quite right to Darlene. He says he buried her right there in that spot by the lake. Darlene confronts Jack about discrepancies in the story. He spills all and admits he raped her.
He apologizes for raping and killing Sally and for lying to Darlene for all these years. She points the gun, and it’s obvious he wants her to shoot him. She shows him that she recorded his confession.
Commentary
It’s a messed-up situation, but it all seems believable. The acting is good, and everyone’s motives are clear. It all unfolds naturally, and although there aren’t a lot of surprises, it’s never clear how it’s going to end.
About the time Darlene accuses Jack of wanting to be punished, we started to wonder if he really killed Sally or if there was something else going on. We got our answer in the end, but it was a real possibility.
There are only three characters and all the action takes place inside a house, so this had to have been a fairly low-budget film, but it’s all really well done.