Offseason

 Marie (Jocelin Donahue) arrives with a friend (Joe Swanberg) at a remote holiday island on the last day of summer. Her mother's grave has been vandalized, a letter informs her, and she needs to go over and survey the damage.

 But the island has the strange custom of sealing itself off after tourist season - they lift the only bridge into town, effectively locking the townies in until winter's over. This leaves Marie with one night to solve the situation with her mother's grave, otherwise she's stuck for the off season.

 And of course there's more to it than that. Marie's ma (played in flashbacks by Melora Walters) didn't want under any circumstances to be buried back in her home town; there's talk of a curse, a deal with a demon. And let's just say that the reception Marie and her friend get in town is... distinctly Innsmouth-ian.

 But while there are some Lovecraftian overtones to the movie, the curse itself is a little more pedestrian (and low-budget-friendly) than a Deep One infestation. The result is the same: Marie is soon left wandering the mist-enshrouded empty tourist town alone with a flashlight, trying to escape the island while being hunted by demonic townies. Any comparisons to Lovecraft or Silent Hill are sadly not going to be very favorable.

 Nothing here is exactly original, but the elements are there for an effective horror-thriller. Unfortunately, despite a strong command of tone, some good cinematography, and a good central performance from Donahue, this one's a bit of a bore.

 Pacing is a huge hurdle: Marie spends ages wandering around in the mist, looking out for threats that mostly fail to materialize. There are some asides that delve a little into Marie and her mother's backstory a little, and they do help break the monotony of the action, but there's only so much careful prowling in empty, darkened tourist traps I can take. Characterization is thin, and most of the dialog devolves into people screaming at each other unconvincingly. Which is a shame because I tend to like most of these actors: Swanberg's character is insufferable, Richard Brake does little more than scream his motivations over and over, and the inestimable Larry Fessenden barely gets a cameo.
 And there are some pretty lousy ideas, as well; The western-inspired pub scene is laughably bad, as is the technical instruction video for a complicated piece of machinery (I'm going to chalk that down to an attempt at humour).

 There's some good mixed in with the bad: I liked a flashback to a session with some lawyers where Marie tries to get her mother's will changed, and the reveal of the evil pulling the strings is pretty memorable. Marie looks great in a fetching tan overcoat. And as mentioned, it's a pretty atmospheric film overall, with some strikingly good looking scenes. But everything else feels threadbare, and not just because of the obviously low funds. Writer/director Mickey Keating simply fails to take the movie anywhere interesting.