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Circles within circles. Daman McCarthy, as he achieved later in the remarkable mindfuck Oddity, is well-suited to a spooky house setup. But this earlier, ghost story meets Evil Dead, film posits an even simpler vocabulary. A man with a past is brought on as a security guard of sorts at the home of a troubled woman. But it gets knottier. So much of the quiet tension here is tied to fundamental, primal fears. The dark is well-trod ground in horror, but employed in engaging ways here. It is first introduced subtly, the light in a doorway turning off in between an edit. Outside it is sunny, inside it is inky black, and Isaac is about to be pulled into the mess he’s confronting. Elsewhere, darkness is captured with such profundity that only the frail circle of a flashlight can penetrate but not grant further insight as to what is in the frame. Darkness is an unknown, reluctant to yield its secrets. Frequently a small, circular hole is the only way to perceive the situation, whether by looking or by reaching. Either act is necessary, but risky. You may reach some key (literal or otherwise) to help escape the scenario. But you might be… noticed. The uncanny mother-daughter relationship is never fully elucidated but enough remains to connect the dots in some sense. This is a spiritual reckoning and a reconciliation. At least the dog makes it out in the end.

Humor and horror are intertwined, and here McCarthy proves that in leaning into and then rejecting the rule of threes. So often, tension is established through the revelation of something which we know must eventually change but is still as static as it ought to be in a normal sense. Isaac turning to check on the corpse of the mother as he cuts a hole in the wall divider. The camera registering Isaac in the doorway feeding the dog tied up in the garden. We never quite get the conventional payoff expected, but that only enhances the experience. It knows what it’s doing and turns the expectation by a few degrees. This is furthermore about a rhythm. The edit and camera move with calibrated precision, terrible in the delivery of uncertainty and unease. If we are talking films with animals playing percussion, this is the David Grohl to The Monkey’s Lars Ulrich.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'island' or 'house'.

The doll starts to drum.

Someone looks at a photograph.

BIG DRINK

Someone starts to fall asleep.

Spin the wheel again. That’s who’s trying to protect you.

(If you have zero idea about a name you got, spin until you see someone you recognize.)

Evening Dances - Oleg Riabchuk , 2026.

Lithuanian , b. 1965 -