Shot in "found footage" style, this is actually a tender story between a newly widowed mother and her teenage son who travel from their home country of Russia on a tour bus into Finland to go on a cheapie "Shopping Tour". Turns out that some of the Finns might be doing some shopping of their own, some of the bloody kind.

The dramatic work between the mother and son was the most surprising part of this one. It's very good and actually quite moving towards the end.

I'm not a big fan of the "shaky-cam" style of filming. I usually find it really obnoxious and hard to watch... but I didn't mind it as much in this. Not sure why, but it didn't affect me as poorly as it usually does. Go figure.

Although this basic story is kind of simple, it's still pretty interesting. If the first 20 minutes weren't so slow, I would have liked this more, It think. But then again, they do a lot of relationship building with the mother and son in that time that pays off towards the end, so who knows.

That last scene is the best one too. It is a bit horrifying.

This movie turned out to be a Hidden Gem. The kind you usually only stumble across via something like HOOPTOBER! Nice!

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Hoop #44 of CINEMONSTER's The Twelfth of Hooptober: Diary of a Madman

My Wild List and all my silly Reviews can be found here: Slappy McGee's Hoop-Tober 12.0 List.

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