Psychotronic Cinemavision: Pilgrim

On Thanksgiving, Cody (Reign Edwards) witnesses her mother and father fighting culminating in her mother abandoning her family.  Years later her father, Shane (Kerr Smith) re-marries to a woman named Anna (Courtney Henggeler) who tries maybe a bit too hard to make everything perfect for the family. The couple have a son together, Tate (Antonio Raul Garcia) and as Thanksgiving approaches Anna hires an acting troupe to do a re-enactment of the original thanksgiving dinner, where the characters, dressed as pilgrims will decorate the house and cook an authentic “Pilgrim” meal for both her family and for their friends and neighbors Katherine (Beth Curry) and Finn (Taj Speights).  Cody is less than thrilled with this idea and is not happy with her current family situation and takes solace in her boyfriend, Finn.  The pilgrims Ethan (Peter Giles) and Patience (Elyse Levesque) arrive earlier then expected and Anna invites Ethan to stay with them, where Patience is going to stay with Katherine. The pilgrims main goal is to make the family appreciate what they have and not to take the family they have for granted. But not all as it appears and Ethan and Patience begin to take over the lives of the two families and by the time Anna and Shane realize that Cody’s initial instincts towards Ethan were correct, it is too late.

Pilgrim is part of the Hulu original horror anthology series, Into the Dark which usually releases 1 episode every month focusing on a holiday that takes place during that month.  It was the second episode of the second season, premiering on November 1, 2019, and focused, of course, on Thanksgiving.  It was directed by Marcus Dunstan with a story by Noah Feinberg and the script by Noah Feinberg, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton.

I love the premise of this and the execution was pretty good.  There is some gore but nothing too much.  Ethan is a bit over the top and campy just creepy enough to give off the appropriately bad vibes but also be quite convincingly charming when needed.  Patience is the character I found the most chilling.  The character had a quiet malevolence that was truly frightening.  It is puzzling that it takes Anna and Shane so long to figure out just how bad their house guests are, but at least they do eventually come to that conclusion.   The character of Cody played by Reign Edwards was somewhat unlikeable at first and really is ungrateful which is truly what the message of the story is trying to get across.  Even Finn points out that possibly she is being so negative because she refuses to give Anna a chance.  Courtney Henggler does a good job as Anna, a woman just trying way too hard to make a perfect family, even the neighbors seem to think that she is a bit absurd in how hard she is trying.  Overall this is a well formulated film with a good creep factor and an interesting story.  And it does emphasis the noble theme of being grateful for what you have all the wealth and family that are often taken for granted. Shane has a great line where he asks, “Did we just murder someone as a family” putting a bit of dark humor but emphasizing how the experience was bringing them together.