By Simon Thompson
Writer/director Luis Calderon’s The Treehouse is an engrossing mixture between psychological, slasher, and folk horror – with some truly eye popping cinematography and surreal imagery. While there is far more to like about The Treehouse than there is to dislike, the final third sadly didn’t grab me as much as the previous two acts did.
The plot of The Treehouse follows Ale (Sandra Escacena) a young woman recounting a romantic getaway with her boyfriend Jesus (Claudio Portalo) that happened a year before the movie’s start. The couple decide to spend a weekend together in a treehouse (suspended more than twenty metres high) in the woods. The romantic trip turns into tragedy however, as Jesus falls to his death from the treehouse, killing him instantly. The story subsequently picks up in the present day, with Ale trying to find out the truth about what happened.
Ernesto Baez’s cinematography creates a dreamlike sense of atmosphere, contrasting the idyllic scenery of the movie’s forest setting with the horror that unfolds throughout the narrative. Due to the isolated nature of the forest it’s the perfect location for this kind of story, with Baez’s switch from a brighter colour palette during the daytime sequences to a darker one during the night underscoring the shift in mood.
The best way I could describe this film’s visuals, is that Calderon combines the classic 80s slasher look of movies such as My Bloody Valentine or Friday The 13th with the more lurid look of directors such as Gaspar Noe and Tarsem Singh. Although Calderon has been a filmmaker for a long time, he’s mainly worked in music videos with The Treehouse being his debut feature – so while the film is striking to look at it suffers from repetitive pacing in large part due to Calderon making the leap from telling four to five minute stories to having to properly pace a tight 1 hour and 20 minute three act structure.
Sandra Escacena’s performance as Ale is assured and likeable. Ale is a character with a completely understandable motivation for doing what she’s doing, with Escacena having the requisite amount of screen presence to carry the movie.
Where The Treehouse falls apart, however, is in the twist ending during the third act. First, the movie telegraphs that a twist is going to happen early on so you’re looking for it most of the time, and when it is finally revealed it’s so underwhelming that it undoes what’s good about it in the first place. Overall, as much as the twist ending didn’t work for me, Luis Calderon is still an extremely impressive technical filmmaker and a name to look out for in the future.
The Treehouse screened as part of Grimmfest 2025 Part 2.
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