Returning to their family’s cabin in the dark, Wisconsin woods to scatter the ashes of their father, a troubled young man and his brash sister are terrorized by signs that an ancient, Native-American spirit, awakened by a ritual murder, has marked them for death.

The new horror film Black Creek, starring apparent youtube superstar Chris O’Flyng, is hardly a disaster. This is the typical paint-by-numbers teen-lead horror pic set in the woods. Brooding loner, Mike (O’Flyng, sporting a strangely un-midwestern, English accent) and his sister Jenna (Leah Patrick) have suffered the loss of their father. To honor his memory, the two gather a group of friends together to spread their father’s ashes at the family cabin. 

Before arriving at the cabin, we are made aware of the return of a malevolent demon in the titular forest surrounding the cabin. Said demon takes possession of people by turning their eyes pitch black and getting them to commit murder after murder. Okay, simple enough. Now we know what the teens are in for. A simple set up, a remote location, everything should go as planned and the teens should soon begin getting picked off one by one. It kinda goes like that, but with a lot more scenes of the young “actors” suffering through expository scenes of character development before anything worthwhile happens.

As the teens settle into the cabin, we are subjected to pithy one-liners and kids trying to sound far more mature than they actually are. Lloyd, (Robert Lowe) the smart ass of the group, gets his ass kicked at a bar for being mouthy to a local and it is meant to make us feel like he is the edgy one in the group. Meanwhile, Deputy Wanner (Pierse Stevens) kindly works to keep the kids out of trouble and far from a danger that he seems to know a lot about. No, not underage drinking, but that aforementioned demon.

Everything comes down, finally, to a showdown that is hampered by choppy editing, a convoluted storyline, and rules that change to cater to the needs of the moment. While not the worst thing I have seen this year, Black Creek ends up slowing to a crawl when it should be speeding up in the third act and sports an ending that is plain goofy. THis little indie horror piece tries, but it still can never rise above the pedigree of self-indulgent vanity project.

Black Creek is available now on VOD