A middle-aged woman who lives in the past sets out to destroy the life of a younger woman who lives in the present in Zach Gayne's horror-comedy. Linda (Precious Chong) first notices Michelle (Alex Essoe, Doctor Sleep's Wendy Torrance) in a yoga class and takes a seemingly innocent interest in her. It starts when she just happens to run into her at the Toronto coffee shop where Michelle likes to work on her laptop, putting together interior design concepts. Linda, who has a lot of free time on her hands, asks to join her, they get to chatting, and she convinces her to take her on as a client. Linda has a habit of snapping at random strangers which Michelle finds unnerving, but she's otherwise friendly, attentive, and possibly a bit lonely. Gayne, who wrote the script with Essoe and Chong, makes it more clear to the audience that something about her isn't quite right, and that she's probably been stalking her prey, but Michelle is also distracted, because she and her husband, Bobby (Kris Siddiqi), have been trying to conceive. In the opening sequence, she gets her period, so she's already feeling vulnerable when Linda puts her charm offensive to work. The next thing Michelle knows, Linda is driving her to her house, where she insists that she have a cocktail. Michelle keeps trying to leave, but Linda keeps finding ways to make her stay. Michelle humors her by staying to watch a Shannen Doherty movie on VHS, but when she refuses to stick around to "talk about boys," Linda bops her in the head. Michelle wakes to find herself locked in a child's nursery, indicating that Linda either had a kid, wanted to have one, or imagines that she did (a question to which Gayne never returns). To make matters worse, the house is locked from the inside, her cell phone is gone, she's been injected with a truth serum, and Linda has changed into '80s-style workout wear. The rest of the film revolves around Michelle's attempts to convince Linda to let her go or to make a getaway. If Michelle has sanity on her side, Linda has insanity, which means she's capable of anything. Just when it seems as if the film is going to segue into an all-female version of Stephen King's Misery, which also featured a mallet, it takes some unexpected twists and turns. The results aren't completely satisfying, especially when Gayne reveals the connection between the women, but the full-bodied performances of Essoe and Chong go a long way, not least because the film is a two-hander that takes place primarily in one location. Doug Martsch from Built to Spill provides the dreamy, '60s-style surf-rock score. A strong optional selection. (K. Fennessy)