I don’t expect much from a midnight horror screening at the Melbourne Film Festival, but I want something with a good level of scariness that isn’t too ridiculous in its narrative arc.

Happily this one paid off. Directed by Caleb Phillips, we start with a pretty boring and clunkily portrayed couple living in a big house in the countryside. We are shown that Paul (Charlie Barnett) is cheating on his wife Marie (Jessica Rothe), and he has a quirky and slightly annoying habit of making decisions by tossing a coin with inordinate smugness. They have a baby boy Theo, and we can see that Marie is trying hard to keep her family together and on a positive track.

There is an odd man, Orson (Bates Wilder), who hangs around their country property. It turns out when he was a young boy he lived there and some strange things happened to his mother and father. Then at a house party, baby Theo suddenly disappears and the lives of Paul and Marie are thrown into chaos.

I won’t tell you what happens but there are some threads that reminded me of different films and TV – Backrooms, From, Dark. It’s all good fun and as it begins to get more and more complicated, I did have a twinge of fear that perhaps it would all be for nothing.

I’m happy to say though that it is tied up very neatly and delightfully.

And I think it doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test as the female characters are obsessed with talking about male babies and husbands. IYKYK.