The Secret Of Sinchanee: Review

3rd October 2021

The Secret Of Sinchanee: Review

Will Stark (Steven Grayhm) has just lost his father and is forced to go back home and confront his past. He’s also an insomniac, so he may not be in the best state of mind to deal with the pressures of having to decide what to do with his family home and grief is taking its toll.

Then Will starts to have some unusual experiences and hallucinations which he starts to believe are connected to a spirit haunting his house.

Detective Carrie Donovan (Tamara Austin) is also conducting an investigation into the supernatural, but it all leads back to a legend of Sinchanee, a vengeful spirit that haunts burial grounds of Native Americans. However, with neither Will or Detective Donovan knowing about each other, their experiences with Sinchanee become quite different as Will starts to feel the hold of Sinchanee and Detective Donovan gets closer to the legend.

The Secret of Sinchanee is a supernatural folklore-based horror written, directed by and starring Steven Grayhm in his directorial debut. Unfortunately, it seems that besides the intriguing set up which remind audiences of Stephen King’s earlier work, there’s just a bit too much going on at once.

The two stories don’t really seem to match up and it’s to the point where Grayhm should have perhaps stuck to one story or the other. This feels evident in the film because just as one storyline with Will gets going it cuts back to Detective Donovan and vice versa. The film takes a long time to get going as well. In a film that’s nearly two hours long it feels like something could have been cut.

With its references to familiar tropes of horror, it’s clear that Grayhm knows what he’s doing in terms of story. It just feels too ambitious where perhaps the director is trying to subvert the subgenres by combining the two.

There’s also the questionable use of the tried and tested Native American spirit which has proven to be problematic through overuse in the genre. Overall, there really is no secret to Sinchanee and with a better editor the film could have given a better story.

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