One thing I’ll say for the Winona Ryder horror film “Gone in the Night,” it sure doesn’t follow the usual playbook about a couple that rents a cabin deep in the woods. To be sure, it turns out to be a REALLY BAD IDEA, but the twist here is so creatively perverted and strange and bizarre that David Cronenberg might approve. Alas, there’s just not enough gristle and gore on the bone of this story to make for a memorably haunting viewer experience.
Originally called “The Cow” (for hilariously dark reasons I won’t reveal), “Gone in the Night” opens with Ryder’s Kath, a horticulturalist and professor, driving with her boyfriend of the last year, the younger Max (John Gallagher Jr.), from Oakland to a remote cabin in the woods, mostly because Max has been teasing Kath about never wanting to do anything spontaneous and fun. (Max considers himself to be a liberated free spirit, but he’s more of a douchey millennial who still gets upset about almost losing his favorite hat even though he’s in his 30s, not 7.)
