Gillian receives an unusual and mysterious letter in the mail. Soon afterwords, she is stalked by nondescript shadowy figures that don’t quite grab her. Feeling like she’s losing her mind and her husband thinks she needs to be committed, Gillian takes their young daughter away to “escape” the shadowy figures. Twenty years later, her mother IS committed and Meg also receives a mysterious letter and is soon called at the bank where she works only to hear strange noises on the phone. She then also begins being stalked by the shadows.
Oh boy. Where to begin with this one? A Debt to be Paid is a raw first effort from Lacey that probably should’ve been screened a little harder by the editor. The story telling is thin, the characters are wooden and not very interesting, the shadow people are never explained nor do we find out why they’re stalking the characters. Even Meg’s dad and boyfriend has the same name, Brian, for no apparent reason. There are only four main characters in the whole story. Why in the hell would you name two of them Brian unless there was a point to it? It makes the storytelling muddy at times. On top of that, the story isn’t scary, realistic, break any new ground, have a point and not very interesting. Not much here folks. It feels like I killed an hour watching a bad Lifetime Channel movie.
2 unexplained shadow out of 5
I was given a free digital copy of this story in exchange for an honest review
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Into The Macabre 