CWC D: Tony Elliott. U.S./Canada. 88 min. Sep 15, 9:15 pm, Scotiabank 3. Rating: NNN
Elliott – who brought the clever/tragic sci-fi short Entangled to TIFF two years ago – makes his feature debut with this resourceful time-loop thriller about a young scientist (Robbie Amell) who becomes aware that he’s repeating the same three hours over and over again: a home invasion that always ends in his death.
Confining the action to a single house with a handful of characters (including Rachael Taylor as our hero’s old flame), Elliott builds a convincing near-future world with a minimum of elaborate visual effects. And the home-invasion premise – which gets more nefarious with each new iteration – gives the whole thing a sense of breathless urgency from the very first scene.