Movie Review: The Windmill (2016)

The movie stars Charlotte Beaumont, Patrick Baladi, Tanroh Ishida, Noah Taylor and Fiona Hampton.

Even though I had never heard of this film and didn't recognize any of the actors/actresses in it, I picked out this movie a couple nights ago simply because it had been a while since my wife and I watched a horror movie together. Since the plot didn't sound like it was anything special, I had lowered expectations when watching this film. However, after seeing it, I have to admit it was much better than I was expecting it to be.

To tell you the truth, this movie really isn't much different than other films in this same genre. It has a simple story and the main focus is on the blood and violence. Plus, character development is kept to a minimum. That being said, this movie also proved to be a fun movie to watch.

I think the thing that really impressed me about this film is the way it avoided being too predictable. The first person to die was one of the ones my wife and I fully expected to survive until the very end as a love interest for the main character, Jennifer (Beaumont). Plus, as the movie progressed and revealed details about the various victims' lives (and their sins), it only made things more interesting.

I also liked the fact the killer (Kenan Raven) could only kill those who had committed a sin and were unrepentant. This made me wonder what would happen to the couple tourists who were obviously innocent of that and, again, kept the film from becoming as predictable as I would normally expect a movie in this genre to be.

I think my only real complaint about this movie is the ending. This is mostly because there is one survivor (there always is) but the film never tells us what happened to that person. Did they escape? Were they killed later? Or, did something else happen to them? While the overall movie was still decent without knowing this information, I did feel as though there was something I missed.

This was a surprisingly good film with a creepy bad guy and a plot that was fast paced and avoided being predictable. I would recommend it if you like horror films.

My Grade: B