Popcorn Frights 2024: ‘Chateau’ flickers with ghostly terror

Writer/director Luke Genton winds the audience up with terrifying, bone-chilling jumpscares and background terror that will wiggle under the skin. Chateau, which makes its world premiere at this summer’s Popcorn Frights, rattles you awake when you least expect it. While adhering to trusty conventions and cliches, Genton’s genre excursion makes damn sure to yank the rug from underneath your feet. You might attempt to stand still, but Genton won’t let you. He hammers fear into your backbone at every single turn. When you finally settle back into your seat, he throws another curveball straight for the skull.

Budding influencer James (Cathy Marks) begs to grow her channel in any possible way she can. While leaning into lifestyle tips, she hasn’t exactly arrived at a brand that brings in the big numbers. She throws content at the wall to see what sticks. During her European trip, she meets Dash (Colton Tran), a bubbly personality, and the two rent a house together. Treading water (and unable to pay rent), James takes cleaning gigs to make ends meet. After landing a new job at a secluded home miles outside of Paris in the countryside, the vlogger decides to do a little ghost hunting when she learns that she’ll be staying inside what many refer to as “Murder Castle.” The self-described skeptic has no idea what she’s stepped in; an easy paycheck turns out to have deadly consequences.

Upon meeting the home’s peculiar host Andrea (Julie Tessier), who suffers from extreme migraines, James films her experience and gives her audience a guided tour of the estate. She even swipes stock drone footage of the property to fully immerse the viewer in how expansive it is. With no cell service, the only communication she has access to is a vintage landline that Andrea keeps up in the attic. From the start, James feels a presence watching her from the shadows, with ghosts and ghouls popping up into the frame in the background. She’s not exactly privy to her guests, but she knows the history of the home, which allegedly entraps the souls of murder victims.

With its jaw-clenching tension and Marks’ radiating presence, Chateau packs in the scares and doesn’t skimp on the twists. Images claw at the throat, as the viewer spirals further and further into Murder Castle’s dusty corners. What you don’t see is equally as frightening as in-your-face frights that make the blood boil and give you hot flashes. Genton masterfully crafts a story that speaks to current digital culture, while never feeling cringy or overcooked, and bestows upon the audience front-row seats to one of the festival’s most surprising feasts.

With music composer Alexander Taylor in tow, Genton creates an unshakably unsettling world that makes for a snug fit into the found footage/screen life landscape. Sitting somewhere between The Den and Unfriended, Chateau arrives as not a wheel-reinventing entry but supplies tantalizing pleasure that’ll get the goosebumps tingling down the spine.

An empty chateau serves as an appropriately nail-biting journey into hell and back. Will James survive? Or will she become another lost soul seeking flesh inside its walls? You’ll get all those answers and more when the film eventually hits VOD – release date TBD.

Chateau made its world premiere at this year’s Popcorn Frights.

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