Have Cheetah,Will View #281 – “The Unwilling” (2017)

Its 5:47 pm
winter may be coming

Its been a rather sluggish December- January for the cheetah and me in terms of hunting films. Our local video store has pretty much locked down their stock and won’t be rotating anything huge til February and the library has been shut down in terms of putting any new stock out until this week.
But I still drove down to the video store in hopes of maybe finding a blind buy or two and as luck would have it,I was able to find and buy “The Unwilling”. I knew zero about this film other then I saw that Dina Meyer was in it and so it was worth taking a chance.
Or was it……

The film opens up with a dying man named Harris in his deathbed and his hospice nurse is talking care of him. A weird figure walks in with a ugly box and places it in Harris’s room telling the nurse that Harris wanted it there. Before the nurse can object,the man is gone and the box is there.

The nurse accidentally bumps the box and is suddenly taken over by a evil entity and bebops around the room,she notices her hair is starting to fall out and then she collapses.
The cheetah started staring at me and whispers “This better not be another “West To Hell” under his breath. I could feel the pressure start to really mount when the score by Stephen Melillo kicks in,I am taken back to my Full Moon Film days back in the 80s.
The score was cheesy as hell as were 99% of the Full Moon films (except for Dr. Mordrid).
A young man named David (David Lipper,who also co-wrote the movie) is getting ready for bed. We see he has OCD because he counts to three aloud to let us know he has OCD.
He gets a phone call in which he is told that his dad,whom we saw in the opening scene has died and that his family will be gathering at his house for the reading of the will. David doesn’t look exactly overjoyed at this development.

We then meet the Harris family,the older sister Michelle (Dina Meyer) who takes great pride in her beauty,the cousins Kelly (Austin Highsmith) and Darren (Jake Thomas). Jake has a real bad drug addiction problem while Kelly babysits him and tries to keep him out of trouble.
In a weird twist,Richard (Robert Rusler),who was married to Michelle but is divorced from her,gets invited to the reading as well. He talks his new younger girlfriend Cheryl (Bree Williamson) into coming with him.
As the family and ex-brother-in-law all gather at David’s house we know learn that not only does David have OCD but is also has agoraphobia (fear of leaving home) and has lived a very quiet life on his own for years. This may explain why there is an instant connection between David and Cheryl when they meet.
The same weird box is dropped off at the doorstep and the group is perplexed by what it means. It looks like a octopus has been frozen on top of it which adds to its weirdness.
There is a saying Latin that translate to “blood of six” which doesn’t make a lick of sense as six needles pop up on the box…if this for is for the blood relatives,then how is it going to be triggered as Richard and Cheryl are not family members.
The cheetah and this point curled up in a small ball and dropped to sleep and let me try and figure this one out.
This group of people then proceed to let the box prick their fingers (yes,really) and a drawer opens,revealing a bar of solid good. Richard,being the greedy one,grabs it and starts wondering how much its worth when the bar suddenly and without warning,burns his hand badly. As they all rush to try and help him,they fail to see the bar melt into a black shadow. It then makes itself into a mural of some kind.
Richard turns into someone different and gets a “possessed” look about him.
Darren decides to trade the box for drugs,grabs it and dashes out the door. Little does he know what kind of deja vu ride the box is going to give him.
Michelle decides to take a shower when her ex,Richard comes in and attempts to attack her which leads to a justified end for ol Richard but causes the group to start losing its sanity….it seems that the box gives a person what it desires the most but then exacts a heavy price for its service. Once the person is done for like poor Richard,the evil spirit needs to find a new victim and there are more people in the house…….

Despite the cheetah passing out,I’m glad I stayed somewhat unwillingly with this one because it was actually decent once all six people gathered in the house.
The story was really uneven in the sense that whatever you desired most,you got. It seemed like while the box was designed to punish people with vices,the fact only two people really fit that. The other four really were decent people yet they were at the mercy at the spirit.
The cast was pretty good with solid performances from almost everyone. The only bad acting was from Lipper,whose OCD  was never believable. Counting to three on everything you do doesn’t ring true. I thought his performance was the weakest.

I had never seen anyone else in the cast before and was pretty impressed by Williamson and especially Rusler in his possessed mode,he had a real aura of evil around him.
The effects were quite excellent for such a small budgeted film and added some real twists and turns to the story. The effects were practical for the most part and very well done. Jonathan Heap provided strong direction and put every dollar he had onscreen. All in all “The Unwilling” is pretty decent and worth a look.

“The Unwilling” has a run time of 84 minutes and special features include interviews with cast and crew. The film is rated “R”.

The cheetah slept through this but I gave “The Unwilling” a thumbs up.