1h 14min. // A family of three drives through the desolate Texas backroads at dusk, their vacation road trip slowly dissolving into unease as the landscape stretches on without end. When they finally admit they are lost, an isolated lodge appears out of the darkness, presided over by a strange, twitchy caretaker named Torgo, who insists he “takes care of the place while the Master is away.” The father, desperate for shelter, ignores his misgivings and moves his wife and young daughter into the eerie house, where a looming painting of a robed figure and his pack of dogs seems to watch their every move.

As night deepens, the family realizes they are not guests but captives in a place devoted to a sinister pagan cult. Outside, in a stone courtyard, a circle of slumbering women in diaphanous gowns lies at the feet of the Master, a stern, mustached figure who awakens to pass judgment on the intruders. The wife’s pleas, the father’s attempts at escape, and the child’s confusion all play out against a backdrop of chanting, ritual, and surreal ceremony, where logic gives way to dreamlike dread.

The lodge becomes a trap of shifting allegiances and escalating menace, as Torgo’s divided loyalties and the Master’s iron will clash over the fate of the newcomers. Each attempt to flee only draws the family deeper into the cult’s orbit, blurring the line between victim and initiate. By the time dawn threatens the horizon, the desert has closed in, the police are oblivious, and the Master’s rule over his domain—and over those who stumble into it—feels grimly, inescapably complete.

 

Directed by: Harold P. Warren

Writing Credits: Harold P. Warren

Starring: Harold P. Warren, John Reynolds, Diane Mahree

 

Photo Gallery: