This film start with a sound from the recorder talking about black magic, and a daughter "Ellie" visit her mother "Ivy" scene! As turnout, this film is about finding out who kill Ellie's sister "Cara"! Cara actually kill by Ellie's mother! Entire film full of boring conversation, and annoying overuse scene! Such as, overuse of the imagination scene, overuse of the flashbacks scene, overuse of the drinking scene, overuse of the jump scare scene, overuse of the calling names scene, overuse of the searching scene, overuse of the walking scene, overuse of the arguing scene, overuse of the switching from right to left scene, overuse of the recorder sound narrating scene, and overuse of the watching TV scene! Make the film unwatchable! Barely intense scene is, Ellie dreaming a baby biting her nipple! At the end, after locked her parents in a room, Ellie leave their parents house with her ex-boyfriend "Gus"! That's it! Another disappointed film!

I hadn't even heard about the 2020 movie "Reunion" from writer and director Jake Mahaffy before now in 2021, as I had the opportunity to sit down to watch the movie. And I must say that the movie's synopsis had me lured in, and the fact that Julia Ormond was on the cast list also made me have an interest.

And the movie's synopsis states, and I quote, "What begins as a tenuous reunion slowly turns terrifying." Now, the key word here is slowly. Boy was this a slow paced movie. It was, in fact, so slow paced that the fact of sitting through the entire movie without falling asleep was quite an accomplishment. Wow, this movie was incredibly slow paced. And that, in turn, made for a very tedious and boring movie.

The storyline in the movie was actually interesting enough, but it was just slaughtered and mauled by the incredibly slow pacing of the storytelling. There were some really good aspects to the storyline and some very interesting things here. Just a shame that it was killed off by the monotonous pacing of the movie.

As for the acting in the movie. Well, the movie does have a rather small cast ensemble, which means that there is somewhat more pressure on the cast to deliver good performances to carry the movie. And the two lead actresses, Julia Ormond (playing Ivy) and Emma Draper (playing Ellie) really put on good performances. Just a shame that these performances were wasted on such an atrociously paced storyline and movie.

The movie itself had so much potential. But it just never was brought to a fulfilling fruition. Why? Well, you already know the answer to that; the pacing of the movie.

Visually then "Reunion" was interesting. There was a good sense of foreboding and lurking dread throughout the course of the movie, and that was accomplished by the sets that made up the house and its interior. And I must admit that I was especially impressed with the visuals towards the end of the movie, but by then it was just too little too late.

Ultimately then "Reunion" just failed as an interesting movie. And while I managed to endure the ordeal of getting through the movie, then this is by no means a movie that I would recommend you rushing out to spend your money, time or effort on.

My rating of this 2020 movie from writer and director Jake Mahaffy lands on a more than generous three out of ten stars.

Clearly the goal here was to get someone to call it "arthouse" (a term I despise because it implies not all movies are art) and like so many before it, takes some ideas that sound fine on paper but collapses under the weight of its own ambition.

Major Persona and Eraserhead vibes: the former in the way that the visualization was pretentiously permitted to eclipse the subject in a way that was comedic (the screen warps likes its a well used VHS). The latter in how the line between dreams and reality are (admittedly quite admirably) blurred along a theme of maternity.

This theme is fact is really used to beat you over the head, I thought the intermittent slides and lectures ultimately added nothing and where just the writers' lazy way to try and push their own obsessions onto a story that really wasn't made to convey them.

There is a smart story here somewhere. While the main focus is on a family visit that totally reminds us why we don't go home for Christmas anymore, flashbacks gradually piece together a much more intriguing story of sororal jealousy and parental manipulation.

Often melodramatic and sometimes even soapy, I want to give credit to an audacious attempt to not just be another paint by number family drama or teen scream. It tries to sort of have elements of both but even the passion clearly put into this work was not enough.

Fascinating in its own way just as much for what doesn't work for what does, I suspect if you saw it with someone you could talk about it for a while.