The Haunting of Velkwood

The propulsive if underbaked latest from Bram Stoker Award winner Kiste (Reluctant Immortals) aims to shed light on the terrors lurking beneath everyday suburbia but falls short of the mark. Middle-aged Talitha Velkwood was, in the 1980s, one of three friends to escape their small neighborhood—now known as “The Velkwood Vicinity”—before, in “a cosmic anomaly,” it inexplicably “went from a nothing neighborhood to a literal nothing... it wavers in between, there and not there, like some kind of ghoulish Brigadoon.” Now paranormal researcher Jack convinces Talitha to go back, sure that only she is capable of crossing the border. What she finds there is a street full of ghosts ready to bring her back to the traumas of her youth. Kiste delivers some truly uncanny imagery in this strange suburban wasteland, but the eerie atmospherics often fail to take on larger meaning. One of the Velkwood neighbors, for example, is always shown conversing with a frog in varying states of decomposition, but, beyond its weirdness, the significance of this remains opaque. The plot is fast-paced but somewhat predictable, and the scares never pack a true punch. This is best suited for Kiste’s die-hard fans. (Mar.)