Misha Wallace - Social Media EditorIf you can’t stand the heat . . . well you know the rest but unfortunately the poor folks in movie 247°F don’t have a choice – trapped in a sauna and suffering excruciating heat and stifling confinement in this horror/thriller.
If you
can’t stand the heat . . . well you know the rest but unfortunately the poor
folks in movie 247oF don’t have a choice – trapped in a sauna and
suffering excruciating heat and stifling confinement in this horror/thriller.
Nervous and anxious Jenna (Scout Taylor-Compton) reluctantly tags along with best friend Renee (Christina Ulloa) for a weekend in a lakeside cabin
with Renee’s boyfriend Michael (Michael
Copon) and his mate Ian (Travis Van
Winkle). After dinner
and drinks with Ian’s uncle Wade (Tyler
Mane) who owns the cabin, they plan to go to a local party later in the
evening. After Wade leaves to help
with the party preparations, the four decide to have some relaxation time
before the party by basking in the cabin’s built-in sauna. But when Michael leaves the sauna in a
drunken stupor, Jenna, Renee and Ian discover that they are mysteriously locked
in. With water rations scarce and
the heat intensifying, they must figure out a way to escape or face heatstroke
and a slow death.
247oF has been placed within the horror/thriller
genre and does follow the typical horror movie formula to some degree. The action takes place in the typical secluded,
eerie setting of a country cabin (think The
Cabin in the Woods, Cabin Fever or
Friday 13th) and
directors Levan
Bakhia and Beqa Jguburia
try to create some tension by having the group enter and leave the sauna a few
times before they become trapped.
There are actors here from a horror movie background, from the likes of
the Halloween and Friday 13th remakes and their
characters are firm stereotypes.
Protagonist Jenna is a plain but troubled girl, jittery and on
anti-depressants following a car accident where she lost a boyfriend (a
pointless back-story that does not come to much); Renee is the sassy BFF with
the temper and the thick, jock boyfriend, Michael who is only in it for one
thing; Ian is Jenna’s possible love interest, remaining the voice of reason and
the guy with the brain who seems to know a little about absolutely everything.
The film is supposedly based on true events so as a rule the
idea of people being thrown in to such a desperate situation should be quite
terrifying. However, not only do
we never discover anything about the real people involved, but on the whole 247oF
does not have the feel or the nail biting suspense of a horror movie. While each actor is watchable and do
what they set out to do (Taylor-Compton and Van Winkle have the edge), they
lack vigour and individuality so it is hard to feel much empathy for them. While they are clearly suffering and
attempting clever ways of escape and survival, there is never a strong enough
sense about how their situation is affecting them physically and emotionally
and not much conflict between them within the small space. Although the film does evoke an
atmosphere of suffocating heat and does make you curious about who or what trapped
the characters, the script itself has weaknesses. The premise of the film promises a dark, terrifying ride of
claustrophobia, paranoia, fear and impending death but instead the story just
plods along with no real suspense – just a lot of sweating and screaming. The fact is there are bigger and better
movies about the terrors of claustrophobia and seclusion like Buried (Ryan Reynolds) and The Divide (Michael Biehn).
247oF will engage your interest and will certainly
not induce sleep but it is far from being a captivating, edge of your seat
horror movie.
