Reviews
‘The Breach’ Review – A Lovecraftian and Vague House of Horrors [Fantasia]
Beginning with the stomach-churning body horror novel The Troop, author Craig Davidson quickly established himself as a horror author to watch under the pen name Nick Cutter. Adapting the boundary-pushing, gruesome, and often cosmic horror found on Cutter’s pages makes for a tricky and daunting task. Rue Morgue president Rodrigo Gudiño‘s second feature takes on Cutter’s latest, an Audible original book, The Breach. The Breach transforms the haunted house into a Lovecraftian nightmare, though it struggles to fully capture the unknowable, visceral quality that comes with cosmic horror.
John Hawkins (Allan Hawco) is mere days from closing out his tenure as the Chief of Police in his small town and moving to the big city. Just before he leaves, he’s tasked with one final case; a disfigured and unrecognizable body washes ashore on Porcupine River. It’s suspected to belong to missing physicist Dr. Cole Parsons (Adam Kenneth Wilson). Hawkins enlists local coroner Jacob Redgrave (Wesley French) and his ex, Meg Fulbright (Emily Alatalo), the town’s charter-boat guide, to head upriver to Parson’s home for clues. Their investigation leads them to a dilapidated house of horrors with unexpected guests and gruesome surprises.
Working from a script by Davidson and Ian Weir, Gudiño attempts to establish emotional stakes straightaway with a history of tangled relationship drama between John, Jacob, and Meg. Tensions between the three complicate the investigation; Jacob harbors resentment toward John for stealing his girl, and Meg wears her lingering feelings on her sleeves. It’s dampened by bouts of stiff line delivery and a lack of chemistry. It doesn’t help that executive producer and guitar legend SLASH composed a score that doesn’t always mesh so well with the atmospherics. A sex scene becomes even more awkward and rushed thanks to out-of-place guitar riffs.
Luckily, Natalie Brown’s Linda enters the equation. Linda arrives searching for her missing husband in the wake of a tragic loss, one at the center of the madness. Linda’s motivations serve as a stronger emotional anchor for the ensuing madness and offer significant forward momentum for the plot. The foursome slowly pieces together Dr. Cole’s experimentations and the catastrophic ramifications they caused, ramping up a haunted house into a full-blown body horror nightmare.
The story’s simplicity and familiarity are reminiscent of Lovecraft’s “From Beyond.” A scientist that attempts to play God, an electrical device that rips open rifts in reality, unspeakable horror that evades, and unwitting investigators in over their heads adheres closely to the well-trodden path. Gudiño injects it all with fresh moments of body horror and imagery. Lurking specters and haunted house motifs give way to something far more tangible and goopy. A drawn-out moment involving a nail induces every bit of the tension and cringe intended.
The body horror is at its strongest when Gudiño uses restraint to capture the bizarre growths and oozy flesh in rapid bursts, carefully maintaining the unknowable quality of Lovecraftian horror. The third act struggles against Gudiño’s attempts to boldly show his hand under broad daylight. It’s here where the limitations expose their unraveling seams, and close-ups of the otherworldly horrors look rough around the edges.
That sums up The Breach; it’s a solid idea that’s marred by showing too much. And it’s at odds with the vagueness of what’s happening. Character arcs get hurried for the skin-crawling horror, which becomes less effective the more we see. A strong start loses its way by the finale, but it’s still filled with some potent ideas, and imagery maintains body horror curiosity.
The Breach made its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
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