Kim Carnby loves to experiment with the protagonist. From the mentally violent, and tortured "Shotgun Boy", the weak accomplice in "Bastard", the uncaring, and suicidal "Sweet Home" protagonist. He always likes to play with the audience's morality, and here it seems he looked for an extreme amount of questioning. Waking up without memories, while being surrounded by uncooperative people is terrifying, but there's always something darker, something that even after the ending I still think about.
"I don't know what's going on, and if I don't, I'll go f*cking nuts". I like stories about a mystery, but amnesia is one trope I hate. They don't use it other than to keep an audience confused throughout the whole run until the very, VERY end. Luckily, we don't get that here, and the amnesia has a fresh spin that, even if it isn't that new, or interesting like in the past, it makes sense why they used it. The world has a purpose, every character has a specific need to exist, every scene builds, and builds, and doesn't stop stacking jenga pieces on top of each other, and you know everything will viscerally crumble. I was stressed out of my mind just waiting for the simplest answer, or a tragic twist, as the author always makes.
From every character, it's as if taking exactly what's cliché'd about a "house in the middle of nowhere" trope, and using that against the audience. The domineering father, the cunning daughter, the mentally ill son, the creepy kid, so on, and so forth. We know this, we've known this ever since horror was popularized, but trying not to spoil, this isn't a victim's story, or a power fantasy. Having said that, not every character matters, and I would've liked more depth in other parts. There's a point when you could've cut some "tense" scenes with some of them that don't really matter. It's just more of the same "oh, we're being real tense right here" without developing anything.
The art is great, the horror faces are drawn well, and honestly, I wish I could get in depth about this one. Since it's based around a twisted narrative, I can't speak about how great the latter half is, without ruining the experience. I wish anybody reading this will give it a shot, everything is great, even if a little predictable, but it wasn't trying to hide its cards, just distract you from the truth for as long as it could. I enjoyed the questions posed, and I hated the ending, because it did exactly what it should.
8/10. Works really well, but I can only speak like a robot about the basic aspects. The story is everything here.
