Offseason is the latest project from writer/director Mickey Keating (Pod, Carnage Park, Psychopaths) and is a movie that caught my interest after getting some heavy Silent Hill and Lovecraftian vibes from the trailer. Sadly, finally having seen the movie, I can say that it doesn't quite offer much else for fans looking for more than simply atmosphere.

The story follows a young woman named Marie (Jocelin Donahue), who travels back to her deceased mother’s old island town after she’s notified that someone has desecrated her grave. She drops everything and manages to get into the town before a big storm hits only to find herself mostly ignored by the weird locals. She soon discovers she’s also stuck in the town after the bridge that connects to the mainland is lifted and will remain that way for the rest of the season.

Marie started out trying to discover what happened to her mother’s grave (while wandering aimlessly and getting no help from the locals), but ultimately spends the rest of the film simply trying to get back to the mainland, because clearly something is up with these damn townspeople.

While the movie definitely has Silent Hill vibes with the fog covering the town (minus the grotesque creatures), it’s clear that the main inspiration are the works of Lovecraft, specifically “The Shadow over Innsmouth” that also dealt with a small seaport town, strange locals, and some crazy revelations, all of which aren’t too far off from this movie.

In fact, the details behind the town and the people are plainly revealed early on, which is a little baffling since that leaves little-to-no mystery behind things, while the rest of the story is easily predicted. To make matters worse, a majority of the movie is Marie simply wandering the town and not much else happens until near the end when certain things are revealed (which also come as no surprise, by the way).

Negative aside, the movie had a nice look to it, some decent performances (especially by Richard Brake as an aggressive local) and above average atmosphere, but it needed a bit more going on. That would've added more variety to what was happening and fixed the pacing and maybe then I would have liked it more, but as it stands, it’s a decent effort and I dug some of the Lovecraftian stuff.