“Holistay” (2023) is set in San Diego when two couples discover that they both rented the same Air BnB deluxe house at the same time. They make the best of it because Comic-Con goers have booked all surrounding hotel rooms. When a strange, hooded figure appears by the pool, and screams seem to be coming from the neighboring golf course, the couples get unsettled, but have their own reasons for staying. Writer and director Mary Patel-Gallagher makes her fictional feature debut.
I happily took the assignment for “Holistay” because based on the promotional materials, I could not predict which supernatural figure would end up terrorizing the vacationers, Patel-Gallagher deserves credit for using seldom referenced folklore in her horror film. If her characters did not start describing these supernatural figures, I would have only guessed one out of two. Viewers will have to wait until one hour seventeen minutes into the just under ninety-minute film for them to strike, and it is not worth it. The denouement unfolds at night so the attacks are indiscernible, and if not for the attackers’ appearance, which feels more like Goths putting in extra effort for Halloween, the actual death blows are staid, and any human being could inflict them. It is a bit anti-climactic, and other than to add an extra level of foreboding and atmosphere, it is underdeveloped why they prey on tourists looking for more bang for their buck, which I’ll get into later in the spoilers section.
Patel-Gallagher delivered a solid first four minutes. “Holistay” may have been better as a short later expanded into a feature. It is a montage of different features of the property in the daytime with synthesizer music playing. Instead of cuts, the shots dissolve into each other imbuing the quotidian objects with a sinister vibe. Then two jean-clad figures march onto the property, clean the grounds, then march out without showing their faces though a glimpse can be seen in the side-view mirror. Without any concern over discovering discarded objects, the efficient routine heightens the tension because it sparked expectations that something bad was going to happen, and no one would notice. I also correctly guessed that the film would end on this note. Unfortunately it is the first and last time that a sequence will show rather than tell and create a sense of foreboding.
The rest of “Holistay” relies on enjoying the individual characters and wanting to know more about them, being invested in the health of each couple’s relationship and worrying about the dynamic between the couples. Imagine going on a destination vacation, realizing that oh yeah, other people are going to be here, and it would be weird not to interact with them. The exchanges are superficial and follow a preordained script of pleasantries and innocuous demographic information. Now imagine an entire movie with dialogue revolving around that scenario.
If “Holistay” hid an incisive critique of tourism, gender norms, heteronormativity and/or human nature in the banal conversation, which the horror elements enhanced, then it would be worth it, but Patel-Gallagher is going for a more elemental twist, and if you are hoping for something as gonzo as “Barbarian” (2022), you need to scale back your expectations. Dublin couple Finn (Gavin O’Ferraigh) and Brianna (Erin Gavin) arrive first with Tony and Gia following soon after. Each couple is hiding things from their partner and the other pair, but Patel-Gallagher leverages the latter for the most humor and reveals their secrets to the audience whereas Finn and Brianna act the same when alone with each other or the other couple. They are just thrilled at having nice weather and legal pot. They are the kind of couples who find common ground in making sexual innuendos, drinking, eating pot laced pastries, and engaging in the most basic tourist past times. If I was stuck in this scenario, I would live in my car or invest in a decent tent then park it on the nearest permitted campgrounds. They are nice enough, but the boredom would be the real horror. Once the Goth kids turned up, I would exclaim, “Oh, thank God, someone interesting,” and would be oblivious to the fact that they wanted to kill me.
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I watch too many movies, but the twist in “Holistay” appears obvious, especially if you Google the title, which means staycation in Europe. If all the weird occurrences revolve around Irish folklore, and an Irish couple is there, it is obvious that they are the real bad guys, especially since they seem so innocuous compared to the other duo. The Irish couple are the owners, not fellow renters. Tony and Gia, who introduce themselves as a married couple with kids, are really Nick and Gloria. Gloria is on the run and hires Nick to get her out of the US, but later Nick finds out that she stole from a charity, and Gloria is another alias. I had some hopes that Nick’s misgivings about her illicit acts would tie in with the supernatural, but nope. It turns out that the Irish couple are in cahoots with the supernatural figures, who kill the guests then keep their shit or at least that seems to be the only logical motive; however, it does not seem like a reliable way to earn money since they do not appear to know or care about the real reasons that the alleged married couple were staying so no one gets the stolen money, which is the real tragedy. Just keep renting out the place. Basically, even supernatural figures like nice weather and tourist destinations.
The cleaners are a banshee and an evil druid. The Irish couple do not appear to be supernatural, but they are their benevolent bosses who enjoy making them breakfast and keeping the best pilfered objects from their fearsome lackeys. To be fair, I do not know a lot about druids or banshees, but the latter screams when someone is going to die but are not necessarily evil. Do druids disappear and lurk mostly harmlessly in corners? It feels random, especially since the mythology and the murder are unconnected except by modus operandi. Patel-Gallagher never ties together why an evil druid and a banshee would team up then why they are cool with the seemingly normal Irish couple. I could have missed it, but the Irish couple have nothing that signals why a druid and banshee would be so deferential. Also their attacks should be connected with their station, but it just seems like they just use their evocative spookiness to frighten people. These characters did not need to be supernatural to kill the pretend married couple.
In the end, “Holistay” missed an opportunity to embrace the randomness and make it a story about the American dream and immigrants without demonizing the latter. There are some eleventh-hour hints that Ava may have good motives for stealing the money so highlighting everyone’s private desperation to rationalize why they were engaging in reprehensible acts would have made a movie with no villains. The real horror could be that everyone is in prosperous drag and in financial crisis, but Patel-Gallagher missed the opportunity. She probably started with the idea of the twist and turning the tables but did not think through how to develop the characters, the story and the mythology.
