Bornless Ones – HCF Review

Bornless Ones (2017)
Directed by: Alexander Babaev
Written by: Alexander Babaev
Starring: Bobby T, Devin Goodsell, Margaret Judson, Mark Furze, Michael Johnston

In US cinemas and on VOD 10th February 2017

Stupidly good looking couple, Emily and Jesse move to a creepy house in middle of nowhere, Clichésville USA. Moving to look after Emily’s vulnerable brother Zach, who is suffering from extremely bad cerebral palsy, they are joined by their equally good looking friends Woodrow and Michelle, to fix up their creepy new home. In the first few minutes we see several teen slasher tropes, from the odd-ball local at the gas station, to gratuitous sex scenes. At times it feels like it’s aware of the fact it’s following the typical clichés of a group of horny kids out in the back of beyond, terrorised by a malevolent force, and this is probably to lull you in to a false sense of where this is going. At other times it takes itself quite seriously and things get quite grim. At the house, there’s several signs of previous wrongdoing and weirdness and it’s not long before things start getting supernatural however, and some rather nasty demons start taking over.

 

To divulge in why these netherworldly monsters are to taking over may spoil a couple of the films more challenging scenes, one of which involves one of the characters mutilating themselves, from which point things really start to move up a notch. There’s a lot of possessions, with the characters all turning on each other, and when they do, it can get quite brutal. These demons are particularly fond of knitting needles, and putting them places they aren’t designed for. The evil forces at work are quite nasty, exploiting each of the character’s manifesting guilt and fear. It definitely wears its influences on its sleeve, as barely a scene goes by without being able to compare it to a classic horror film. There’s some impressive nightmarish scenes, and the way the evil beings take over is actually pretty unique, considering. There are some monsters present that seem like they are taken out too easily without much of a fight however, which would have been interesting to see up close, although it’s likely the budget would have had to have been significantly bigger for that to happen. That being said, for a small film like this, the effects are excellent. Plenty of gore and the CGI is actually pretty decent where used, and does not remove you from the experience whatsoever.

Part Evil Dead, and part 80’s teen slasher, Bornless Ones is a surprisingly good accumulation of influences with an equally surprising amount of impaling and stabbing. Despite going over a lot of worn horror lore, it manages to put a fresh spin on what may have otherwise been a by the numbers, cabin in the woods, horror film.

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