PopHorror Let's Get Scared
The New Zealand horror film Reunion is a meeting of several different ideas that don’t coexist well in this script. Psychological trauma, false memories, guilt, destructive paranoia, ghosts, the dark arts, the practice of alchemy, and some archaic form of cloning. The film is directed by Jake Mahaffy and stars Emma Draper and Julia Ormond.
Synopsis for Reunion
A pregnant woman named Ellie (Emma Draper) returns to her childhood home after the death of her grandmother and begins a painful journey of rediscovering traumatic memories of her childhood. As Ellie attempts to reconnect with her estranged mother, Ivy (Julia Ormond), bizarre family secrets emerge to threaten her life and that of her unborn child. Ellie is haunted by a strange child named Cara, who holds the key to the past.
A horror film that dealt exclusively with the corrosive nature of past trauma eating someone alive and acting as the catalyst for terrifying events would be a welcome escape from CGI monsters and slasher bloodbaths, which is why the inclusion of supernatural and science fiction elements in Reunion feels unnecessary. Very bad things can and do happen without the involvement of mysticism.
There’s also an issue of pacing in terms of reveals. The more eldritch aspects don’t occur until very late in the film, which further underscores their ultimate meaninglessness to the narrative. A horror film focusing solely on the anxieties of a first pregnancy and the mental toll it takes on a woman would’ve been great. And while that anxiety is one element of Reunion, it’s crammed into the story with too many other needless concepts. You get the impression that the screenwriter felt the proceedings weren’t traditionally scary enough, so they threw in some last-minute horror tropes to more clearly define what genre the film belongs to. That balancing act between real-world psychological abuse and mental illness vs science fiction weirdness and literal ghosts doesn’t work.
The performances by Julia Ormond and Emma Draper are very strong, and their toxic relationship is very well developed. Ivy is subtly domineering and her agenda is to erase the past, even convincing herself that her memories aren’t how things truly played out. Ellie struggles to hold on to splinters of reality as the person she always believed she was, begins to unravel. Both actresses do great work. The old house setting is gorgeous and there are some really stylish editing choices made as Ellie relives various childhood moments throughout the massive home.
I was left feeling ambivalent about the film. It’s far from terrible and the ingredients are here for a movie that would have been much more potent and frightening if only the script had been reworked and tightened up. As it is, Reunion is a slow burn psychological horror drama about bad parenting that then suddenly decides to not be psychological anymore. For anyone who wants to check this film out and collect your own opinions on it, Reunion hits theaters, on digital, VOD from Dark Sky Films beginning February 5!
