Shadows of Willow Cabin review – secrets fester beneath horny hookup in low budget horror

The best elevated horror makes a metaphor out of its writhing emotional subtext, but writer-director Joe Fria sadly can’t make the leap in this low-budget debut that undoubtedly has issues on its mind: repressed homosexuality, compulsive hookups and generational trauma. For much of the film the horror elements abruptly waylay what is otherwise a fraught two-handed gay drama.

After meeting on the apps, middle-aged English teacher Albert (Bryan Bellomo) and lithe paramedic Devon (John Brodsky) are finally getting cosy at Willow Cabin – the former’s childhood summer getaway, named for a line in Twelfth Night. But secrets fester beneath this ostensibly horny hookup. In Albert’s case, he has a wife and son – and this spot, which once belonged to his uncle, is where he first explored the other side of his sexuality, with his cousin. As for Devon, Albert is the latest in a long line of unfulfilling liaisons with married men, thanks to the emotional damage inflicted by his abusive dad. While both of them are candid to a point, the sporadic phantom eruptions inside the cabin suggest they’ve not got everything out of their systems.

Painstakingly seeping out in 114 minutes full of circuitous and sometimes cheesy dialogue, Shadows of Willow Cabin if nothing else feels highly personal. But Fria takes too long to move beyond pantomime gothic and find a deeper rooting for what verges on a compelling saga of familial shame and damage. And the claustrophobic bounds undeniably wring visual inventiveness out of Fria: he lights interiors to match the mood, giving them a pallid wash as the atmosphere sours. And on a couple of occasions, he breaks out the revolving shot Alfonso Cuarón used in Roma and lets the sound outside the shack do its work.

While Brodsky’s outbursts belong with the film’s erratic fright-night side, beyond the cultured exterior Bellomo has a pugnacious set to his jaw that lends substance to this would-be primer in escaping the binds of the past. A pity then that Fria couldn’t fully manifest his themes in a killer conceit – though a closet monster probably would have been pushing it.