A reunion between an estranged father and son grows increasingly strange, tense, and darkly comic in Ant Timpson’s feature debut. In a home seemingly ripped from the 70s and deposited on a Tofino shoreline, nebbishy Norval (Elijah Wood) ineptly attempts to win his old man Gordon’s (Stephen McHattie) approval only to incur his emasculating wrath instead. But then a series of macabre twists indebted to both Poe and Peckinpah sees this psychologically rich chamber drama crashed by some truly menacing outsiders…

Having produced past Altered States selections Housebound and Deathgasm, Timpson clearly knows what makes superior genre fare tick. Now stepping behind the camera, he demonstrates a knack for idiosyncratic narrative rhythms and unexpected emotional beats as he unveils his own twisted sensibility. Opening with dueling quotes from Shakespeare and Beyonce, the film proceeds to borrow a page from Pinter’s brand of close quarters drama. And yet, by its grisly, cathartic conclusion, there’s little doubt that this film is all Ant Timpson.

“An absurd gross-out romp that turns into a tearjerker… An ideal metaphor for the often messy process of confronting family bonds that burst apart long ago.” – Eric Kohn, IndieWire