Trinket Box

Trinket Box
Starring Augie Duke, Acorye White, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Cindy Hogan
Directed by Acorye White & Patrycja Kepa

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I'm not entirely sure that applies to films that blatantly rip off other, better films to create their own Frankenstein monster of a movie. This happens time and again, and "Trinket Box" is no different - a film that takes ideas from "Get Out," "Evil Dead," and every demon possessed movie in the last fifty years and throws them into a blender, creating the worst-tasting thing you can imagine: a film totally devoid of anything symbolizing decency, or even mediocrity - and one that's not even worthy of parody, but rather one that should immediately sink into obscurity where it belongs.

Married interracial couple Ava (Augie Duke) and Mike (Acorye White) Wilson move into a new home that was once the scene of an unspeakable race crime back in the 30s, and also has a creepy older neighbor lady named Mrs. Davis (Sandra Ellis Lafferty), who gives Ava a trinket box with a necklace inside. Mike is wary of someone giving a gift without getting something in return, and is more wary of Mrs. Davis's outright racist bias toward him, but Ava shrugs it off as her being from a different time. She puts on the necklace and seems to be taken over by an entity that wants to kill Mike, but she fights against it with Mike's help, until she realizes she can't control her actions anymore which could mean the end of both of them.

There's nothing new about "Trinket Box" and, worst of all, it takes license from other films and completely dulls their impact. Jordan Peele's 2017 film "Get Out" was a revolutionary horror film that highlighted the issues of racism in America and earned the director an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay, and "Trinket Box" steals this idea for their own bland story. Like "Get Out" this film follows an interracial couple dealing with the racism of those around them, but here it's muted to an annoying degree, where you don't care about anyone involved because it's so heavy-fisted you can't help but not care.

Likewise they take liberty from "Evil Dead" about a cursed artifact (in this case a necklace that, inexplicably, turns the wearer into a demonic racist or something) and turning someone into a demonic hell spawn - in this case it happens to Ava, who becomes a different person when she puts it on. But this doesn't turn her wholly evil, but annoyingly does so when the script demands it: mostly at night, when the shots are so dark you can't even see anything happening, and therefore mutes it even more.

Speaking of the cinematography, the film was shot with such annoying lighting that it's impossible to see what's happening at night, when most of the horror takes place. The music crescendos in ways that would make you jump if you weren't staring at a black screen, but since you're staring at a black screen you don't jump because you don't know what's happening. The setting itself is also diluted, giving us a mundane, ordinary, generic house that matches the mundane, ordinary, generic story being told.

The actors also are totally terrible at their jobs, with the exception of "Hunger Games" star Sandra Ellis Lafferty, who plays racist Mrs. Davis like the caricature she is - and at least it seems like she knows how stupid the film is. Augie Duke (who made an appearance in one of my worst films of 2021, "6:45") will probably make another appearance in my worst films of 2023 as the wholly insufferable Ava, who bounces from doting wife to a demon possessed victim at will, and who has about the same vocal influx for both as a muted mule. Likewise Acorye White's Mike is dull, and seemingly incapable of understanding what's happening right before his eyes.

The film is only one hour and forty three minutes, but it feels like it drags on to "Godfather" like levels where you just want it to end, and when it comes, you're grateful that it's finally over: not that you care at all what happens (because it's pretty obvious), but because you can immediately stand up and wipe the visuals you just watched (or didn't, due to poor lighting).

The Score: D-