‘Treehouse’ starts off in an intriguing manner with the very young looking Elizabeth (Dana Melanie) coming home to find her young brother ‘little Bob’ missing after, bizarrely, being left in the family house alone.
Two brothers, the bullied Killian (J. Michael Trautmann) and wholesome Crawford (Daniel Fredrick) discover Elizabeth trapped in a treehouse, before Crawford disappears (he appears to be one of several figures hung from the tree in probably the film’s most effective sequence) and the two youngsters then have to fend for themselves.
What happens next is a jumble of flashbacks and tantalising glimpses of what appears to be a creature in the distance. The creature turns out to be one of three hillbillies who seem intent on killing the two juveniles.
There were some sound problems (loud music and quiet dialogue), but ‘Treehouse’ has been shot and directed very well, much of the action appearing to take place in crisp early morning sunlight which helps give the woodland setting a stark, uncomfortable look. The acting too, is very good until the very end when the two surviving leads are required to be hardened and detached by events, ready to take on the world – which is asking too much and fails to convince.