Plot or Premise

A woman running from something shows up with her kids at a remote island port to paint a mural in a lighthouse.

My Reactions

The initial premise focused on the lighthouse, women being accused of witchcraft, and missing children. However, while there are elements of witchcraft history, it is surprisingly almost secondary to the premise of the tale, which takes place across three timeframes — the past history of women and witchcraft, along with demons who seem to steal children’s souls; the current tale of the woman painting the mural while raising three kids; and the future tale of one of the kids 20 years later.

As you go through the potential risk of missing kids, an element of demons or evil fae comes in where the missing children are replaced by evil replicants of the original child. It’s much more of a supernatural element than I was expecting, and the story shifts from one of witchcraft to moral tales of women killing their children to save the others. Very dark.

For my overall reaction though, I have to give a SPOILER ALERT. It’s almost impossible to explain my disappointment without reference to the revelation that there isn’t much going on for evil or devilry … there’s a time portal under the lighthouse and people pass through it only to come back at a different stage of life. The weird part is that everyone is focused on the children, but they are NOT the only passengers. At that point, the story falls apart for me. It isn’t just children who are “duplicated”, yet that is the tale. And I love time travel, so that wasn’t the problem for me — it was that there is this “fake” explanation for what’s going on, with tons of time spent on it, and weirdness galore. Followed by the real explanation that is rather hum-drum. Including Children’s Services not seeing any problem with the age of a child changing by 20y.

I was very disappointed against the original description.

The Bottom Line

Never lived up to the description