The magic of Ragsdale’s films resides in the ability to suspend everyone’s disbelief in the paranormal. Thus is true with his newest creation, The Long Night.

Scream-queen Scout Taylor Compton brings us another superb performance as Grace, a young woman who is desperately trying to locate the parents she never knew. Her journey takes her and her love, Jack (Funk), to a very remote plantation where one could easily breakdown from the isolation. The secluded drive with an ominous score hovering around every aerial shot is right out of the Kubrick playbook – I thought I was on my way to the Overlook Hotel! Fantastic set up for a creepy invasion.

Immediately, we are immersed within a fortitude of entrapment. The visions, the entangled woods and the house itself send shivers up your spine before the goat-headed cult comes-a-calling.

Unfortunately for me, there is a serpent focal point where he makes an appearance many times over. *Sigh*. Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?

And then, we are greeted with a gritty, unrecognizable Jeff Fahey as Wayne, the house owner’s brother. Wayne is a no-nonsense, southern-style good ‘ole boy who just wants to know who Grace and Jack are…and more importantly…what’s with the hillbilly voodoo characters taking up residence on the front yard? Fahey is as remarkable as ever, approaching the sect Master without hesitation to rid his family’s land of this crazy assembly.

As the bloody pentagrams, sacrificial animals and a few brutal demises build up the tension, the motive centers around Grace and her bloodline to this sadistic cult of witchiness.

I cannot lie…this is one entertaining, eerie concoction of despair.