Disappearance on Clifton Hill is more like a disappearance of your valuable time on an absurdly cliche masterwork in hot garbage.

Canadian so-called “mystery” that feels like a overwrought cut-scene for a bad video game. Spare yourself this blithering tax write-off for whoever financed it. One dimensional over-dramatic cast of characters lack a single iota of purpose running around like headless chickens at the whim of a personalitiness cliche female brooder. Yes, I found myself wondering by act 2 why she even cared about what she was doing hunting down a crime she witnessed at 7. From scene to scene I kept wondering how such a purposeless film could get made let alone cameo David Cronenberg, who is as terrible an actor as can be despite his directorial brilliance.

Cronenberg himself, as a cinematic icon of psychological horror, being in this poor excuse for some kind of deeper level of corruption in the movie budget bizness reveals much. Not to diverge on why awful movies like this are drowning streaming services (corruption in the movie biz on all levels) but when I found out David “F*ckin” Cronenberg was physically in this movie, playing a conspiracy theorist boomer, I felt a need to react.

If you don’t figure out the end of this ronk-fest within the first 5 minutes you deserve to be trapped in a cabin and only have this garbage to watch for eternity. If you’re a film geek like me watch it for Cronenbergs cameo and balk at the levels of horrible the rest of the cast, script and so-called “mystery aspects” are — tropes so simple to predict they point to evidence of my assertion this was a “scam film”, seemingly contrived by the Producers tax illiterate fourteen year old step-daughter to skimp on script costs while still receiving a hefty payday on this bonafied loss unopportunity.

Tuppence Middleton ("Abby") returns to her Niagara Falls family home following the death of her mother, and together with sister "Laure" (Hannah Gross) has to dispose of her assets - including their motel. Once there, she starts getting flashbacks of a memory (real or imagined, we do not yet know) in which she is the witness to a kidnapping. What ensues now is a creatively crafted psychological thriller that though quite interesting, initially, manages quite successfully to tie itself up in too many knots. Middleton is decent enough, but the plot so convoluted and meandering that the focus and pace of the story serves to distract us from what might have been an engaging thriller and by mid way through I really couldn't have cared less. As you'd expect, the scenery is beautiful but the soundtrack is really downbeat and the ending, when it eventually comes, offers more by way of light relief than satisfaction.