Cabin 28 (2017)

Having suffered through a snoozer on Monday night, I had hoped that one of the new releases at Family Video would have helped put that out of my mind. After walking through, I finally settled on the 2017 true crime thriller Cabin 28.

Plot/ Based on one of the most infamous unsolved murder cases in American history, this film follows a family who is terrorized at an isolated cabin by mysterious assailants.

I love movies based on true stories and I did like this story when I watched it in The Strangers, but in this one, there was something missing. While I do realize that this was made with a low budget, there were definitely some issues that should have been avoided regardless of the budget. Sure, the storyline is interesting and really disturbing considering the nature of the true crime story, but even with that, this one doesn’t build upon that in any way. The performances were uneven, the scripting has some mixed dialog and the decisions put on display make little to no sense, the soundtrack did not help set the mood or help build tension in any way, the costuming was more laughable than disturbing, and the worst part was that the film did a terrible job capturing the 1980s feel that should have been connected to it. Having grown up in the 1980s, there wasn’t even a piece of nostalgic gold for me to grasp. In the end, although I made it through the movie and found the source material intriguing, I cannot really remember any part of this film that stood out. Watch The Strangers or find the documentary, those would both be better options.