THE WINDMILL (MASSACRE) (2016)

Studio:       XLrator Media
Director:    Nick Jongerius
Writer:       Suzy Quid, Chris W. Mitchell
Producer:  Daniel Koefoed, Nick Jongerius
Stars:     Charlotte Beaumont, Bart Klever, Patrick Baladi, Ben Batt, Fiona Hampton, Tanroh Ishida, Adam Thomas Wright, Noah Taylor

Review Score:

---

Summary:

Eight strangers are forced to confront their darkest sins when a supernatural being stalks them at a haunted Holland windmill.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Amsterdam, Present Day – Mr. de Vries discovers his Australian nanny Julie is actually fugitive Jennifer Harris. Jennifer hits him with a vase and escapes.

Jennifer ends up hiding on a countryside tour bus with young boy Curt and his distracted businessman father Douglas West, drug-addicted doctor Nicholas Cooper, former model and aspiring French photographer Ruby Rousseau, hungover soldier Jackson, and Japanese tourist Takashi Kido, who is in Holland to honor his late grandmother. Abe drives the bus.

Thinking she sees her dead father in the road, Jennifer forces Abe to suddenly stop. The bus becomes stalled. Jennifer and Jackson go on foot to look for help at a nearby windmill.

In the forest, Jackson has a flashback to murdering a prostitute while in a sudden rage the night before. A supernatural stalker with a scythe appears, cutting off Jackson’s legs and stomping on his head.

Jennifer runs back to the others. After hearing her wild claims of what happened to Jackson, Nicholas diagnoses Jennifer as delusional. Something suddenly hits the bus. Everyone runs out just before the bus overturns into a stream.

Curt cuts himself in the escape, which worries his father since Curt is a hemophiliac. Everyone sets out to see if there is a miller at the nearby windmill who can help them. Takashi goes off on his own when he follows a vision of his family dog.

The group stops at an abandoned shack to care for Curt while Abe goes alone to the windmill. Abe comes back claiming that the windmill’s doors were closed and no one was there.

Takashi follows the dog to a clearing where he sees an empty rocking chair. Takashi becomes haunted by memories of euthanizing his grandmother, but expresses regret for his actions. The Miller appears and raises his scythe.

Abe finds a parchment in the shack that is a centuries-old death warrant for a local miller named Hendrik. Townspeople killed Hendrik and burnt down his mill for practicing witchcraft and allegedly making a deal with the Devil. Nicholas fills in other details about the Miller Hendrik legend.

Outside, Nicholas is drawn away by the sight of an operating table between the trees. Nicholas sees a patient on the table who died when he performed surgery while on drugs. Nicholas shouts that he isn’t to blame for her death. The Miller appears and disembowels Nicholas.

Takashi returns to the others. With Ruby translating, Takashi explains that he believes they are all standing at a gateway to Hell to be punished for individual sins. Takashi survived the demon’s wrath because he expressed remorse for his actions. Without repentance, they are all bound for damnation.

Abe recounts a part of local legend that says the Devil was so pleased with the miller that Hendrik became a gatekeeper for Hell after his death. Meanwhile, the Miller drains the blood from Nicholas’ body and uses it to power the windmill.

Jennifer relives killing her abusive dad by setting his trailer on fire in order to protect her little brother Danny. Unknowingly, Danny went back inside the burning trailer to retrieve a koala toy and he died too.

Ruby openly confesses to arranging for Yakuza to cut a rival model who later committed suicide. Ruby is drawn to her reflection in a puddle outside and is forcibly drowned.

Douglas and Abe go to the mill when they see it working. They find bodies strung up inside and realize Jennifer and Takashi were telling the truth. Remembering his son, Douglas races with Abe back to the others.

Jennifer and Takashi conclude that they need to burn down the windmill to close the gateway.

Curt discovers that his father’s sin is that Douglas strangled the boy’s mother. Curt runs away. Douglas goes after him, but the Miller strangles and decapitates Douglas with a rope.

Takashi suggests to Abe that they get gas from the bus to start the fire at the mill. Abe suddenly stabs and kills Takashi while Jennifer is elsewhere with Curt.

Jennifer retrieves the gas and goes to the mill with Abe and Curt. There she discovers that Abe is the Miller’s servant. The Miller drags Jennifer outside while Abe prepares to kill Curt since he is an innocent boy that the Miller cannot harm.

Jennifer attacks a vision of her father and beats him to death with a bone. The Miller prepares to kill her. However, Curt gets away from Abe and uses a lighter to ignite the gasoline inside the mill. Outside, the Miller suddenly starts burning and explodes.

Jennifer rushes inside and stops Abe from strangling Curt by slashing Abe’s throat. Jennifer and Curt escape as the burning windmill begins crashing around Abe.

Thinking they made it to safety outside, Jennifer and Curt are surprised to see the Miller standing in the windmill’s flames. The Miller hooks Jennifer by throwing a chain into her face and drags her back inside the mill as it is destroyed. Curt survives.

In the light of day, Abe drives his tour bus on the road near the windmill as it starts reappearing in the background. Abe returns to town and picks up a new busload of sinners.

---

Review:

I can only guess why “The Windmill Massacre” had the title’s last word removed for its U.S. release.  Perhaps someone thought “Massacre” was beneath the film, evoking presumptions of a masked maniac B-movie they’d prefer not be a primary selling point.  You wouldn’t think it a supernatural slasher by looking at cover art of a burning windmill, at any rate.  In fact, without that apparently undesirable word, “The Windmill” actually sounds like Oscar bait from Merchant Ivory starring Jim Broadbent and Ellen Burstyn.

It’s not unjustifiable for marketing to hope to convince you there is more to the movie than a madman offing victims one at a time in the woods.  It does include that.  But there is more psychological substance going on underneath the slaughter to inch the film above its less charming peers in the “superpowered killer on the loose” category of DTV horror.

“The Windmill,” or “The Windmill Massacre” depending on where you are in the world when watching it, starts with Jennifer smashing a vase in her employer’s face.  A wanted fugitive in her native Australia, Jennifer is on the lam as a nanny in Holland and the jig is up.  Taking to the streets to evade police pursuit, Jennifer hides on a tour bus, hoping for an incognito trip out of town while her trail cools off.

Joining Jennifer is Nicholas, a drug-addicted doctor on an art therapy sabbatical.  Former French model Ruby is moving her career to the opposite side of the camera, on assignment to photograph lush Dutch landscapes.  Hungover soldier Jackson is still recovering from whatever happened last night in Amsterdam’s red light region.  Takashi came all the way from Japan in tribute to his dead grandmother.  Disappointed boy Curt hopes distracted dad Douglas can put his phone down long enough to look out the window.  Abe drives the bus.

No one is as interested in touring the countryside’s windmills so much as they are in temporarily hiding from trouble in their pasts.  Those secrets are about to catch up with everyone of course, because sins are the stock and trade of “The Miller.”

As tiny towns tend to in such cases, this one has a tall tale about a witchcraft-practicing miller who allegedly made a deal with the Devil.  Villagers took up torches, burning both windmill and miller until only ash and bone remained.  Except the Devil was so impressed by the man in life that he made him a guardian at Hell’s gate in death.  The Miller now stalks the area in paranormal form.  Anyone unrepentant when it comes to confronting evil acts must face his menace instead.  And punishment comes by way of a personalized Hell even more horrible than the crimes they committed.

You might hear all that and sigh with disinterest.  Maybe there’s not much unique about characterizations like a mouthy man shouting his way through a business call while his neglected son scowls sourly with slumped shoulders.  Even the theme of internalized torment manifesting as physical torture wafts more than a whiff of “been there, done that” in the viewer’s direction.  Still, the semi-serious story in the soul of “The Windmill” has a spirit of splattery fun and a sincere cinematic style to match.

Scenery catches the eye.  Staging is up to snuff.  A smattering of gruesome kills amps both blood and body count, including an entertaining ending sure to make you snicker for its sinister unexpectedness.  Multicultural characters also add to the foreign flavor of the locale.  Performances aren’t dropping dongs over the outfield wall, though they aren’t striking out at the plate either.  Putting it in a peanut shell, “The Windmill” trots out more than a few tropes and predictable plot beats, yet it’s got gory guts and gusto where it counts.

“The Windmill” is no great revelation in genre entertainment and its villain The Miller won’t be joining Freddy, Jason, or Michael on the horror icon Mount Rushmore.  It’s the kind of mid-tier movie whose seen-before conventions ensure socks stay on feet, though you’re unlikely to lament having spent 90 minutes with the movie when it is all said and done.  Should “The Windmill” ever come up in conversation somewhere down the line, you’re at least likely to recall having seen it, possibly with an, “oh yeah, I kind of liked that one!”

Review Score:  65

---