How far would you go to save your child’s life?
This film begins as a mystery. A young boy is lying against a car, unconscious. We then see him being wheeled into a medical facility by two men; but not into an emergency room or a normal hospital room. Instead he is hidden in a locked portion of the building.
One of the men is his father, Greg (Malik Zidi), and the other, a surgeon, is his mother’s brother. The father leaves the hospital, and is met outside by his wife, Anne (Brigitte Urhausen), in a rented car. There is silent animosity between the two as they drive to the border and then beyond. The father is expecting to arrive at a medical facility, but instead they stop at a spot in the woods where they are met and taken to a cave.
Here the horror of what is happening is revealed. They are here to buy an organ for their injured son – his only hope of surviving an accident Anne blames Greg for not preventing. As the exchange of money for organ is completed, a woman suddenly appears, screaming and waving a pistol. She shoots the organ harvesters.
Then we discover she is the mother of a little girl, whom these people had kidnapped and taken multiple organs from. The child’s body is on a table in another part of the cave, and when the woman, Lydia (Lydia Indjova) discovers her, Greg and Anne take advantage of her despair to escape. But Lydia follows, wounding Anne as the two escape with the precious organ. However, they don’t get far before they crash into a tree and are forced to run into the forest with Lydia in murderous pursuit. They elude her, but as night falls they come upon a seemingly abandoned house in the middle of the forest. It is there, that they really begin to question their actions. Meanwhile, power is running down on the cooler that keeps the organ they bought viable, and their ordeal is just beginning,
Writer/director Cyrus Neshvad (“The Red Suitcase”), in his feature directorial debut has, with Guillaume Levil produced a psychological horror story that will chill the heart of every parent. Every moment from the beginning scene is fraught with tension that never lets up. The usual horror tropes are here, but how these two use them is different. Here the horrible situation, while certainly present, is used to explore what human beings will, and will not do, to try to save a loved one.
Highly recommended.
Note: The film is in a mix of languages, with some English and subtitles
Runtime: One hour, 18 minutes
Availability: Open in the UK in October. A US opening is not yet announced.
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