Chattanooga FF: Sweet Relief: Getting Through It Is the Relief

A woman’s dangerous inclinations, a sadistic child killer, and a panic surrounding an online murder challenge reveal the insidious violence of a small New England town.

REVIEW:

Sweet Relief has a good beginning and ending but a miserable middle. It’s a horror film about the disaffection of the online generation. Yet, most of it feels like padding, getting bogged down in characters and conversations that don’t matter to the story.

Three girls , Lily (Jacelyn Lopez), Hannah (Lucie Rosenfeld) and Corey (Catie Dupont) take part in the online murder challenge, Sweet Relief, where they nominate people they want to see dead. They proceed with the murder of one of their neighbors, but fail to follow through on two others. Their penalty, a masked maniac- the Sweet Angel now will pursue and kill them.

When it stays focused Sweet Relief has a decent amount of horror and suspense. But the director, Nick Verdi suffers from filmic attention deficit syndrome and needs to wander. This wouldn’t be so bad if they were interesting things and characters going on. No, It all goes on too long and happens far too often. It’s like listening to a hyperactive chatterbox drone on and on about the dullest minutae of their life.

For the impatient and bored, judicious use of fast forward actually improves the film. The ending is a surprise and worth watching. Just fast forward or surf the net during the inconsequential stuff.