Treehouse (2014)

Let’s start with the good, then proceed to examine the bad and the ugly.

The good: The movie poster. It’s an atmospheric painting of a crumbling treehouse and three victims, with the sun streaking through a hazy, yellowish tint. The treehouse is supported by a thick tree trunk with angled braces. The three silhouetted victims hang – life less – from even higher, unseen branches, a counterpoise trio suspended from above. The bottom part of the frame fades into darkness; there is no forest floor in sight. The tagline: “No kids allowed.”

Except for the nonsensible and irrelevant tagline, it’s a terrific movie poster. It communicates its genre while generating a bit of curiosity: What is this strange structure doing here? It amounts to more of a small cottage with a porch than a haphazardly nailed together kids’ fort.

And how did the victims come to be hung from such lengthy strings? How are they connected the mysterious structure? After examining the poster, anyone would want to view the film to answer such questions.

A second plus is the acting. We can also count the lensing and the lighting. They’re all good. Especially the lighting. Lots of low-angled sunlight hinted at in the movie poster.

And that about covers the good. So, the bad and the ugly? The story and the dialogue.

I wasn’t able to discern how the treehouse fits into the story except that it happens to be where the two main characters, Killian and Elizabeth, find themselves trapped. They spend about 45 minutes there, just telling each other that it’s a bummer that they’re trapped in a treehouse.  At least that’s what I think they were saying.

Complaints might be the content of their exchanges, but the dialogue is so poorly mixed, I couldn’t be totally sure. And apparently, a $3 million budget doesn’t buy you closed captioning, either.

They’re trapped in this arbitrary treehouse, these two, because Elizabeth’s feet are injured, so she can’t climb down the rickety steps nailed into the tree. Except that after spending the night there, they do climb down. So, I guess her feet were all right after all.

Not worth watching.