DREADFUL PLACE, THE
(director/writer: Cole Daniel Hills; cinematographer: Cole Daniel Hills; editor: Cole Daniel Hills; music: Cole Daniel Hills; cast: Abigail Fawn (Emma), Keaton McLachlan (Willow Gardner), Brittany Hills (Sarah), Matt Fling (Thomas, Willow’s father), Daved Olivencia (Chris), Cole Daniel Hills (Host), Ash Carr (The Mare), James Scott Charles Howells (Paul); Runtime: 96; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Brittany Hills, Cole Daniel Hills, Valerie Green Hills; Amazon Prime Video; 2025)
“Its scares are based on the realities of life, something all of us might have freaked-out over to some degree when vulnerable.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Cole Daniel Hills makes his debut as a feature film director a good one with this indie, non-linear, and shoestring budget film. It was filmed in Erie, Pennsylvania. Dreadful Place plays out as an uncompromising mind trip about someone who is losing it and irrationally fears those she’s closest to have let her down. It’s a compelling surreal psychological horror film that tells a chilling internal story that’s well-crafted. The performances are solid (especially by its star Keaton McLachlan, who is mesmerizing. In her dream-world, she asks herself: Who am I?). Hills also acts, produces, photographs, composes and edits.
The detached, aggrieved and witty 22-year-old Willow Gardner (Keaton McLachlan) lives alone (mom is a caretaker for her grandmother). She’s working a diner server job she hates and is not good at. She is repressed and has become trapped in her own subconscious, and is fighting to wake up from her bad dreams and live a full life. Unbearable nightmares cripple her at a time when her world is collapsing both inwardly and outwardly, as it’s approaching the sixth anniversary of the traffic accident death of her alcoholic, famous, classical pianist father (Matt Fling). She’s also upset her best friend from childhood Emma (Abigail Fawn) is getting married and believes she will no longer regularly chat with her. Also, her insensitive ex-boyfriend Chris (Daved Olivencia) reappears in her life unexpectedly as a diner patron when she’s the most vulnerable and can’t put up with his insults.
Things are grounded on Willow’s mental collapse taking place in her mind, showing how it’s possible to get beaten down by imaginary fears not confronted. Willow’s mental problems never let up, as it becomes both an intriguing but a tough watch to fully absorb such a dark and harrowing mind-blowing tale without any breaks in the mood.
It’s a bleak but provocative quality film that does not cheapen its premise with pat answers or water down its mental crisis narrative. It’s the kind of serious horror pic without jump scares or monsters that makes you think for yourself what’s going down. Its scares are based on the realities of life, something all of us might have freaked-out over to some degree when vulnerable.
It played at the Horrific Hope Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 8/22/2025 GRADE: B
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