In short: Realms (2018)

Warning: I’m going to spoil the plot twist!

aka Treasured

aka NeverRealm

I assume Americans Bobby (Ryan Kelley) and Jewel (Madison McKinley) are the winners of the price for “Worst Bankrobbers of the Year”, yet somehow, they still have made it geographically far enough to rob a bank in Thailand. During the course of said robbery, they scream, they shout, they shoot people for no good reason, and they take two young Thai women – Winny (Priya Suandokemai) and her best friend Earn (Air Phantila) – as hostages despite there being no reason for taking hostages. They also don’t have an escape plan, so they hijack one Chaow (Golf Pichaya Nitipaisankul) and his car. Somehow these idiots and their hostages get away from Bangkok and into the countryside. There, a scuffle between Winny and Bobby leads to a car crash, leaving everyone worse for wear and the car out of commission.

Eventually, the bankrobbin’ fools and their hostages end up at an old dilapidated mansion set. Here, things turn even worse, for besides the whole “kidnapped by violent idiots” angle, the hostages and said violent idiots also have to cope with some paranormal activity, as well as a plot twist. Spoilers coming in.

See, all of the characters are in some kind of hell, going through violent events to apparently be punished for a minor massacre they committed in the 1920s. Winny, who would be the final girl in most films, turns out to have been the worst of them all. Alas, that twist really doesn’t work at all. Why would hell put these 1920s people into a contemporary setting? Why do only the Americans act murderous in this version of events? Even turning Winny from being the most sympathetic character to the least sympathetic one doesn’t really do much. Sure, it is somewhat surprising, but otherwise, it adds nothing to the film and really doesn’t say anything about any of the characters, turning the final fifteen minutes into a flabby growth with little point. Well, thematically, we learn that killing people is bad, which will come as a complete surprise to anyone watching I’m sure, so there’s that.

It’s unfortunate, too, for while Daric Gates’s film up until that point wasn’t exactly the most interesting horror movie I’ve seen in the last couple of days, it was at least effectively diverting, showing a decent, international cast walking and running (and so on) through a really rather atmospherically lit mansion set that was shot just as atmospherically by Tiwa Moeithaisong (who also works as a director himself), while confronted by simple yet not completely uninteresting supernatural threats. I’m tempted to say the Thai crew behind the camera (this was shot in Malaysia and Thailand) did pretty good work while the Western part of the production really let their side of the deal down.


If you can ignore the pointlessness of the final fifteen minutes and the resulting lack of satisfaction, Realms is still an okay low budget timewaster, mind you.