Older Gods

 Chris (Rory Wilson) drops out of his life over at the US to travel to Wales without telling anyone and rent a cottage out in the countryside. An old friend, Billy (Ieuan Combs) recently committed some unspeakable act and killed himself - but before doing so, he sent Chris a large bundle of documents and a video asking him to go over his research.

 What's in the folder? Documents, a seeming murder weapon, and pictures detailing, Chris soon discovers, the activities of a shadowy cult that murders anyone who learns anything about them... and their families. Well gee, Billy, thanks for that, you sure are a good friend. Very considerate. My soon to be butchered wife says hi.

 The movie openly bills itself as a bit of Lovecraftian fiction, and it does feature the aforementioned cult of titular Older God worshippers. There's a flash of tentacles and everything. But the film doesn't really engage with cosmic horror as a genre beyond these superficial signifiers. More than anything else, it feels like a premise in search of a story.

 It's a solid, if silly premise: Billy's research started looking into people suffering what he ominously termed 'primal fear', which the rest of us will probably recognize as garden variety existential dread - grappling with the fact that existence is unimaginably large, and we're all insignificant in the scheme of things.

 But the people Billy studied didn't deal with it by going to therapy or reading some Sartre. No, most of them killed themselves, and those who didn't... went on to discover an entity that promised them an end to reality and transcendence into some other state that'd be meaningful. Just as long as they behave like deranged lunatics killing whoever gets too close to them; The standard cultist package deal. And while studying them, him Billy and his team became their next targets.

 While Chris comes to grips with Billy's discoveries, he must also deal with the god and his followers - first psychically, then physically as they start popping up right outside his shack. It's an exceedingly slow burn that only ever builds up to a little flickering and a wisp of smoke; The ending, while kind of sweet and hinting towards a sort of message, seems like another stumble in a script that never really found a consistent direction for its horror or a decent throughline for its story.

 Given that it's a pandemic project put together by a about a dozen people with a total budget of half a million pounds, it's easy to forgive the film's faults. It looks pretty slick, with writer/director David A. Roberts and cinematographer Shaun Bishop effectively grounding the film's drama with some crisp imagery, and a very decent soundtrack by Gerald Buckfield.
 The acting calls a little too much attention to itself ('hey, look at me, I'm acting!'), but everyone puts in a decent effort. Technically, it's a well-made film.

 But while I respect the effort that went into it and the talent needed to end up with a professional-looking product like this, I'm finding it really hard to find a reason to recommend it. There's just not a lot there.