Reunion (2020 film)

Lore & Background

The film follows Ellie, a heavily pregnant woman who returns to her family home with a bruised eye, hoping for quiet to finish her book on medieval magic and science. She finds her estranged mother Ivy and ailing father Jack waiting. Ellie is haunted by visions of her adopted sister Cara, who was murdered in the house years earlier. Ivy constantly gaslights Ellie, claiming she is mentally unstable and prone to seeing things. As Ellie pieces together altered memories, she uncovers that Ivy pushed Cara down the stairs to her death and then blamed Ellie. Further visions reveal her father performing occult experiments, including removing a still-beating heart and placing it in a vase, and her mother chopping a baby with an ax. Ellie discovers a hidden laboratory containing multiple babies in jars. Ivy reveals she never had her own child and plans to cut Ellie's baby out and raise it. Ellie stabs Ivy with a glass shard handed to her by Cara's ghost, sees herself in a tube suggesting she or Cara may have been experiment subjects, then locks her parents in the room and escapes.

Reader's Guide

Reunion is a New Zealand horror film that explores themes of gaslighting, familial abuse, and repressed trauma. Its significance lies in its use of supernatural elements to depict psychological manipulation and the uncovering of dark family secrets. The film's plot centers on Ellie's struggle to reclaim her memories and sanity against her mother's constant denial and blame. The revelation of a hidden laboratory and infant experimentation adds a body-horror dimension to the psychological terror. The film premiered at the virtual 2020 Nightstream Film Festival and was also featured at the Montclair Film Festival, Telluride Horror Show, and Indie Memphis Film Festival. Its simultaneous theatrical and VOD release on 5 February 2021 by Dark Sky Films brought it to wider audiences. The cast includes Julia Ormond as the manipulative mother Ivy and Emma Draper as the protagonist Ellie.

Did You Know?

• Julia Ormond plays Ivy, the mother who gaslights her daughter Ellie.
• Ellie stabs her mother with a glass shard handed to her by the ghost of her adopted sister Cara.