The Windmill Review (2016)

This isn't Hell. This is Holland.

What do you do when you're running from the law? Hop on a bus and go tour the countryside! That's what we see unfold in The Windmill, a group of people with seemingly nothing in common hop on a tour bus for a leisurely tour of Holland’s historic landmarks. It's of course later discovered that they're all running from something and none of them are innocent. All is well until the bus breaks down and they're forced to seek shelter in an old barn next to a ghostly windmill. As people from the tour group start disappearing the story of the windmill starts unfolding. The Windmill starts off great, every character leans on the mysterious and all of their circumstances seem perfectly viable. The group dynamic is a bit cliche, but I didn’t sit down for this expecting to be riveted by character depth. I wanted to see everyone come together only to later be slashed apart, with just enough story to hold it all together. So by these standards The Windmill delivered. But I think it fell short by all other standards.

The story of the original owner of the haunted windmill was cool, he was apparently some kind of village serial killer who used his mill to grind up his victims bones. What wasn’t so cool was his current ghostly self, which was basically just a guy with a trench coat and mask. He was also apparently only targeting “sinners”, but the people in this group who he mindlessly chopped up weren’t all that bad. Most were actually sympathetic characters who didn’t really deserve to be butchered for their supposed sins. But I get it, a killer’s gotta kill.

Worth Watching?

Overall, it's a fairly generic slasher that really only benefits from the Dutch location and its international cast of characters. I don't regret watching it or anything, there's some hilarious practical effects and a handful of scenes that were memorable for their own reasons, it's just nothing I'd go out of my way to recommend.