To Thy Rest (2025) Review

To Thy Rest (2025) Review

Supernatural horror TO THY REST won a wealth of awards on the festival circuit and now Darren McStay’s (POP, CONFLICT) Nordic nightmare is set to arrive on digital this April courtesy of Miracle Media. This spinechiller sees a medium’s sanity put to the test when he’s invited to perform a séance at a mysterious hotel and his sense of reality becomes increasingly distorted by eerie visions and disturbing encounters…

When a film has a runtime clocking in at a dinky hour and seventeen minutes it tends to be the case that the reason for a shorter than average runtime is because the writers have run out of ideas, fortunately that is not the case with TO THY REST. Every minute of its short runtime is used to the full, there’s not one moment that is filler or flab simply because the makers were bereft of ideas.

This Finnish film bares similarities to Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING – with its setting of a remote and empty hotel surrounded by snow, a hotel barman mirroring the equally sinister barman in the 1980 classic and supernatural happenings in abundance – however, this is not a retread of the Jack Nicholson starrer, it’s very much its own beast.

Director and co-writer Darren McStay is to be applauded for both creating and maintaining a creepy vibe that reminds one of the original CARNIVAL OF SOULS from 1962 as UK medium Arthur Sydenham Sharp, a splendid and engaging lead performance from Rikki Chamberlain, is faced with a surreal and isolating environment, hostile hotel staff and cynical locals. From start to finish I was fully engaged and keen to see where the story went to next. Rikki Chamberlain headlines a cast of unfamiliar faces, all of whom, especially Chamberlain, shine and give their best in this unexpected triumph.

On digital 21 April from Miracle Media