Movie Review: Triaphilia (2021)

Triaphilia is an indie horror film written and directed by Joshua Nelson. It’s an anthology that has three stories, all centered around a shop that sells bizarre items that curse the people who purchase them.

The first story “The Demon” is about Karen and her boyfriend Sal who are going to Karen’s parents’ house so that she can introduce them to Sal. Of course, they stopped in the shop beforehand, and are convinced to buy a mirror by the shopkeeper as a gift for the parents. Karen looks in the mirror while there, and their stay gets a lot more interesting afterward.

The second story “The Woman Scorned” is about three girls who stop by the shop and purchase an urn. The urn belongs to a woman who really wants it back and shows up at the house where the girls are. She isn’t very happy that they have the urn and definitely lets them know.

The third and final story “Franklin” is about a couple of friends who stop by the shop and buy a trunk for a grieving woman who has lost her child. There is something in the trunk that causes some mental issues in the grieving mother, and things get out of hand soon after she finds it.

Overall:

Triaphilia is an alright indie horror film with a great score. Despite it being very low-budget, the cameras seem really good as well. Unfortunately, those things alone couldn’t save this one. The acting was somewhere between “bad” and “alright”, the overarching story about the shop with the cursed items is an old concept, and the three stories that make up this anthology weren’t really all that interesting.

We think that it was an ok effort for an indie film, but there was so much potential that feels wasted here. It seems like there wasn’t a lot of thought put into the stories. There are infinite possibilities with an overarching story like that, and it just doesn’t seem like they dug too deep for interesting ideas. Kenny Ledee did a great job as the creepy shopkeeper, though.

Triaphilia comes out this year. Check the trailer below: