This Netflix-powered teen slasher movie from the producers of Stranger Things and The Conjuring movies starts out-and keeps going-strong, with plenty of suspects and victims to choose from, as well as that small-town claustrophobic feel necessary to the plot of so many such movies centered around football, outcasts, parental pressure, connections, parties, and secrets.
The story centers on Makani, a new senior from Hawaii at a small Nebraska high school, her group of friends, and her hidden relationship with an outcast named Ollie (the town deputy’s little brother) who she says is the only one who truly “gets” her.
As the movie opens, one of the star football players napping before Friday night’s kickoff awakens after dark to photos taped throughout his house of him and other players beating up another guy (his family for some reason is already at the game which is in full swing, trying to call him to see where he is, but when not reaching him simply shrugging as if to say, Hmm…you know how he is!). The photos lead him into a closet and an ambush, where a killer wearing a mask of his face stabs him, then sends a video to the entire town of the original beatdown. This event kicks off further outings of the secrets other students are hiding, along with their gruesome deaths by the hand of the look-alike masked killer, more released videos, and Makani’s growing fear that her own secret will be discovered. One by one, the victim count increases as the suspect pool decreases, and this Nebraska corn town soon celebrates harvest season (in a suspiciously still-green November cornstalk maze) with its own fiery oranges and yellows that will put and end to the killings once and for all.
- Top Scare: Knife in Wall
- Heartbeats: 2 out of 5
- Gore Factor 3 out of 5
- Scare Factor: 2 3/4 out of 5
- Recommended for: 16 and up for gore, violence, language, and drug use
