My quick rating – 4.3/10. Cabin Girl looked like it had the ingredients for a fun little supernatural mystery. We’ve got the creepy isolated cabin. Strange small-town vibes. Check. And a lead character poking around where she probably shouldn’t. You know, the kind of setup where common sense packs its bags and has left the building before the opening credits. Unfortunately, while the movie starts with some promise, I ended up guessing the big reveal way too early. Once that happened, a lot of the mystery fizzled out faster than cheap cabin Wi-Fi.
The story follows Ava Robbins (Rose Lane Sanfilippo), a young woman retreating to an isolated cabin under some rather strange circumstances. Naturally, things begin getting weird almost immediately because apparently, horror movie leases come with complimentary supernatural disturbances. The problem is, Cabin Girl rushes headfirst into the strange events without taking much time to build atmosphere or let the tension simmer. Before Ava has really unpacked emotionally, or probably even found where the good coffee mugs are, things are already spiraling into mystery territory.
One of the biggest hurdles is how predictable it becomes. Once Ava’s fascination with the supernatural and the odd local town is introduced, it becomes pretty obvious where this train is heading. And sadly, it’s hard to stay fully invested in a mystery when you feel like you solved the puzzle before the movie has even poured the foundation. There’s also the constant presence of a man watching Ava, which may have been intentional misdirection or atmosphere-building, but it mostly highlighted how underdeveloped everyone else feels. Aside from Ava, most of the supporting characters barely register beyond “person who exists to say suspicious things.”
That said, Rose Lane Sanfilippo does a solid job carrying the film. She gives Ava enough curiosity and unease to make her feel believable, even when the script isn’t doing her many favors. Sanfilippo is clearly putting in the work, and if it weren’t for her, the movie Cabin Girl would definitely not have held my interest. The cinematography also deserves some credit. It works well with the movie’s setting, and it adds to the creepy mood of the film.
Unfortunately, the dialogue doesn’t help matters much. The conversations are quite stiff, the characters always respond in an expected manner, and some of the scenes border on becoming clichés. Rather than having the unusual occurrences seem scary or intriguing, the film seems to be ticking all the boxes of the supernatural thriller genre, like it found a “How To Make A Creepy Cabin Movie” checklist online.
Still, for a Tubi original indie flick, Cabin Girl isn’t completely without merit. There are glimpses of something more intriguing buried underneath the familiar tropes, and it’s made well enough to avoid being a total write-off. It just never fully commits to being surprising. Or memorable. If predictable supernatural stories don’t bother you, there’s enough here for a casual watch, but for me, this cabin came with way too much déjà vu.
