★★
When a single mother accepts the help of a mysterious woman after her daughter is bitten by a rattlesnake, she finds herself making an unthinkable deal with the devil to repay the stranger.
Classification: 15
Desperate in the endless scorching desert, a screaming terrified child and an enigmatic stranger offering salvation, Rattlesnake does have a damn fine premise to kick off its western mystery. Zak Hilditch, however, doesn't have anything to make this film interesting beyond the locations as his script flounders almost immediately after Carmen Ejogo's daughter is bitten by the Rattlesnake. From the moment Ejogo's Katrina Ridgeway cuts a deal with the devil and learns what price must be paid the film just loses all of its tension and intrigue as Rattlesnake goes for the most obvious moral arguments.
A soul for a soul is the deal and so Katrina must take a life in order to keep her daughter alive from the snake's poison. The idea of taking a life is shocking but Rattlesnake makes everything feel so bland and unexciting with the film giving Katrina the most obvious of choices; an elderly ill man in a hospital or an abusive man who may be a criminal. An uninspired option of mercy or justice but Hilditch's direction just drags the story out for a needlessly long time and Ejogo's performance isn't captivating enough for the audience. Essentially the bulk of the film is her trying to work up the courage to kill someone in a way so she won't be caught, all the while being visited by apparitions of the dealmaker. Forms of previous victims, a reminder too Katrina of what fate awaits her daughter should she fail but that sense of a ticking clock or any gripping tension is just lost in the film. Another issue is that these visits don't feel foreboding but rather feeble as none of these actors creates any memorable charisma for the antagonist.
There's just not enough to story to Rattlesnake as it really does lose all its steam within the first fifteen minutes. The hemming and hawing of whether to commit murder isn't interesting because no characters within the film are compelling, the audience does not care for Katrina's plight nor if any character dies within the story. It does pick up for a few moments in the third act when the characters return to the desert mountains but its solely down to the location rather than the content. Hilditch's vision shows potential when it embraces this western folklore angle about this demon of the desert claiming souls but just bogs it down with unnecessary filler about the steps to take to get a firearm in Texas. Rattlesnake should feel mythical like a fireside tale about helplessness and fear but just comes across like an impromptu guide on what not to do if bitten by a snake.
It's a disappointment that fails its premise and doesn't deliver anything for audiences to really enjoy. Hilditch's location scouts should get praise in finding some decent desert spots for the third act and Roberto Schaefer's cinematography for capturing a small sliver of that potential. The musical score has its moments again tapping into the fabled sense of the rattlesnake's history and the Faustian bargain that Katrina is forced to make, Ian Hultquist work coils with Schaefers well but just makes Hilditch's final product even more frustrating and mediocre. Forgettable filmmaking and performances are all that's on the table with this ineffective tale and Rattlesnake isn't worth the time.
Director: #ZakHilditch
Cast: #CarmenEjogo, #TheoRossi, #EmmaGreenwell
Release Date: October 25th 2019
Available exclusively on Netflix
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database
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