At the beginning of the movie, Emma is cutting things off with Tom, the guy with whom she's been having an affair. He wants to meet one last time, but Emma says no - it's her anniversary, and Mark, her husband, has plans.

Things are tense between Mark and Emma, but she plays along and tries to look like she's enjoying their anniversary dinner. Then he takes her to a secluded lake house where they once spent happier times. It looks like he's set up a romantic evening, until Emma wakes up the next morning and finds herself handcuffed to him. Seconds after that discovery, Mark shoots himself in the head. Emma somehow has to break free from her husband and deal with the many traps and obstacles he's prepared for her.

Netflix's official description doesn't mention the suicide, so I suppose that could count as a spoiler, but I felt it was worth mentioning - it happens relatively early in the movie and is sudden, bloody, and shocking. Not particularly upsetting, though. Mark's living moments were spent prowling around, staring at Emma like she was prey.

I was interested to see how/if Emma would manage to free herself and survive. That said, this wasn't a particularly good movie. The writer didn't seem to understand how human emotions work. People did things because the story required them to and had emotional reactions only when absolutely necessary. I counted maybe two believable reactions on Megan Fox's part - the moment after Mark shot himself and Emma was in shock and covered in his blood, and the moment when Emma screamed at Mark for being a hypocrite.

Even if Emma hated Mark, they'd known each other for years. There should have been some connection, warped or otherwise. It was remarkable how quickly Emma went from shocked and bloody to pulling Mark around like a sack of gory potatoes.

Just about every other character in the movie was paper-thin setup for the horrors Emma would have to go through. The entire thing would have fallen apart if one or two people had said "You know what? This isn't worth it" and left. And the revenge setup was just awful. Like, it would have been easier to just commit double murder and then suicide.

But like I said, it still managed to be entertaining in its own way, even as I wondered how Emma hadn't lost the use of her feet yet. True, she wrapped up her feet a couple times, but that was nowhere near enough protection from the snow and ice. Has the writer ever been in really cold weather before, in wet clothes?

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )