Movie Review: “Reunion”
Familial horror has been a hot subgenre the past few years, and the New Zealand chiller Reunion is a fine entry into that category. Although the film is rich with the dark arts and the supernatural, it is bolstered by fine drama with performances focusing on a highly tense mother-and-daughter relationship and a secret that threatens to drive their troubled family even further apart. Ellie (Emma Draper), heavily pregnant and recently separated from her abusive fiancé, returns to her childhood home — fittingly, a large, dark gothic dwelling — after her grandparents pass away to finish a book she is writing about science and the occult. Unbeknownst to her, her estranged mother Ivy (Julia Ormond) is there, ostensibly to work on preparing the house for appraisal while taking care of family patriarch Jack (John Bach), who is suffering from dementia. Ellie’s old flame Gus (Cohen Holloway) is doing restoration work on the house. Ellie and Ivy are at odds from
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