An Australian girl on the run from her past and fleeing from authorities in Amsterdam boards a bus touring the rural, scenic parts of Holland.  She’s not the only tourist on board with secrets, though, and those secrets threaten to destroy everyone when the bus breaks down near an unmapped, dilapidated windmill that’s home to a local legend about a murderous miller. Paranoia and fear grows as the body count piles up.

Aside from the gloriously brutal, practical effect driven kills of some of the characters, the best part of the film is The Miller and his backstory. 

Writer/director Nick Jongerius takes the traditional slasher blueprint and applies Dutch folklore for his bloody supernatural mashup. Having previously worked on visual spectacle Frankenstein’s Army, Jongerius employs a similar visual aesthetic here.  Not only is Amsterdam and the Holland countryside beautiful in and of itself, but Jongerius overlays the stunning backdrop with a classic old school horror setting, complete with fog effects.  The result is this unique blend of modern meets retro that contributes to the fun vibe that permeates the entire film.

While our clear final girl is Jennifer, the aforementioned Australian girl, Jongerius spends a lot of time introducing us to his ill-fated characters and their secrets before The Miller begins his systematic slayings.  It’s an eclectic group that boasts a wide diversity, and yet they all seem to be defined by their darkest secret.  On the one hand, these characters avoid the typical archetypes found in slashers, but on the other, they’re not as layered or complex as intended.  As such, you never really care about any of them.

Though the kill order can be unpredictable due to the subversion of character clichés, the narrative is straight forward and free of plot twists.  You can pretty much guess exactly where the story is going to go before the characters realize what’s happening.  Jongerius knows that the strength of his narrative rests on the film’s mythology.  Aside from the gloriously brutal, practical effect driven kills of some of the characters, the best part of the film is The Miller and his backstory.  While the film gives you everything you need to know about the windmill and its evil, bloodthirsty miller, the mythology behind it is so fascinating I found myself wanting more.  Though it’s clear Jongerius wasn’t looking to create your typical slasher, and this isn’t, I couldn’t help at feeling a sense of nostalgia when I realized I began actively rooting for the film’s killer over his victims.

 The film ultimately succeeds at what it sets out to do; which is offer up a ton of fun. 

For his first full feature debut, Jongerius has created a fun supernatural slasher to mixed results.  It’s fast paced with an interesting mythology and killer, but it’s uneven in terms of storytelling and character development.  For most, this won’t matter as you typically sign up for slashers hoping to see its characters dispatched in gloriously ruthless ways.  Yet the character deaths are often as uneven as the storytelling.  Some get inventive deaths and some are quickly dispatched in yawn inducing fashion. Part of this has to do with the folklore, but largely this has to do with the extensive time spent on setting up these characters.  I don’t really care about the victims; just give me more of The Miller. Really, though, the film ultimately succeeds at what it sets out to do; which is offer up a ton of fun.

The Windmill is releasing on VOD on October 25, 2016.the-windmill-b1-70x100cm-fl-rgb-02