Shaina (Niki McElroy) and her partner, Mark (Todd Anthony), along with their friend Eli (Juhaha Jones) have booked into a remote holiday home in the sparsely populated Shady Grove. Shaina is pregnant, and this could be the couple’s last hurrah, so they want to make the most of it. Eli has been into the village and could have already hooked up with a local, inviting her to party with them later. When Emma (Sydney Morgan) arrives with her friend Taylor (Victoria Baldessara), Shaina feels things are off. This is not least since she’s been smelling something particularly rancid coming from a locked pantry. Eli takes Emma away for some alone time, but things get very gruesome when some locals arrive wearing animal masks.

Mixing elements of folk horror and home invasion tropes, Shady Grove is an entertaining enough tale that hits the right spots when it needs to. Luckily, it doesn’t play the ‘cabin in the woods’ angle too much, leaning into the characters rather than the location until the ominous appearances of the animal-masked attackers.

McElroy and Anthony are fantastic as the expecting couple, and Jones is jovial enough as their overly ‘eager to get some action’ pal. Once things begin to get deadly, the film slips into some more predictable moments, but still remains an entertaining romp.

Shady Grove is out now on digital platforms in the US