It’s an interesting idea, I suppose. Three friends get trapped in a sauna, not really sure if their drunk friend locked them inside or if something else happened. It would certainly be a frightening predicament in real life. But, this isn’t real life. This is the movies, and I’m supposed to love the characters and be entertained by exciting and horrifying scenes. But there is none of that.
None of the characters are lovable; not even the lead character Jenna, played by Scout Taylor-Compton (you may know her from the Rob Zombie Halloween films). For some reason, as if the writers couldn’t come up with any other way to make the audience like her other than to be cliché, we find out in the opening scene that Jenna lost her fiancé sometime in the past in a tragic accident. But this doesn’t make us like her. We’re led to assume that this tragedy is the reason for her no-fun, fuddy duddy attitude around her friends, but we don’t really care. Taylor-Compton overplays the role, making us wish she’d been left at home to weep into her pillow. And the friends are even worse horror genre clichés, with the pompous, drunk men and the drunk, slutty girlfriend. Ugh!
But the disappointment doesn’t end there. When the group gets trapped in the sauna, the filmmakers could have embraced the madness. They could have had some crazy, murderous, cannibalistic, self-mutilating, batshit-fucking madness going on. Instead, there was just a bunch of sitting around whining and screaming at each other. Not to mention, there could have been an exciting backstory as to why they’ve been locked in the sauna. We’re even briefly led to believe this may be the case, but that notion is quickly and disappointingly dispelled. They could have been purposely locked in the sauna to slow roast for a band of hungry cannibals or human-eating aliens or whatever. But, no. It was all–spoiler alert!–a hapless accident.
If you make it to the ending, it’s the only scene that triggers any kind of emotion from the viewer. It’s a momentary heart-wrenching, well-done scene, in an otherwise lackluster film.
You can watch it on Tubi or get the dvd on Amazon.
