Children of the Pines

Reluctantly driving home from college to her parents’ house Riley (Kelly Tappen) stops at a diner.

To Riley’s surprise she meets her old flame Gordon (Vas Provatakis) working as a server. The conversation is strained as Riley has done the better of the two, leaving the small town, and family problems behind. Gordon hasn’t fared well educationally. He’s now working at the diner, and for Riley’s father. That news comes out of left-field, leaving Riley astonished, which is then compounded when he explains the relationship he has developed with her parents.

This is the first in a series of weird situations that Riley comes up against when she gets home. The Gordon news is outdone when her parents Kathy (Danielle J. Bowman) and John (Richard Cohn-Lee) say they now have two children.

There is a lead up to all this during the film’s opening sequence which has Kathy having a rough time at what at the outset appears to be a visit to family counsellors Leon (David Raizor) and Lorelei (Donna Rae Allen) regarding her relationship with Riley, which gradually develops into something more sinister.

Writer and director Joshua Morgan has delivered a very impressive debut feature. While ostensibly a horror film, it plays just as well as a penetrating psychological drama about the possibilities of redemption between Riley and her parents.

The acting here is first class as both sides try to work out a way through their problems, leaving the impression that they are both sincere in their aims.

Into the family breakdown story Morgan has woven themes about people/cults looking to exploit the vulnerable and sowed into that the menaces of misogyny and an overbearing patriarchy.

As can be gleaned there is a palpable air of strangeness throughout the film (helped no end by the small town America scenario, set in a snowy landscape) punctured by quite a violent scene and an ending which is not altogether satisfactory.

Children of the Pines will be available on Digital Download Worldwide from 18th October.