The Cottage



Five friends decide that they’re going to spend the weekend at a nice, rustic cottage. Some place where they can just chill and have a good time. But once they get there strange things start happening. They’re sporadically plunged into darkness several times, despite it not even being 11 AM and they keep hearing strange noises around the cabin. Then, just to top it off, one of the friends starts acting really weird, and it quickly becomes apparent that they have not only awakened something, but that that something doesn’t want them there.



The Cottage is a 2022 horror/comedy short written and directed by Bitota Mpolo, and cast with a handful of actors that surprisingly have a couple of other movie credits to their name. But since they’re almost all exclusively short films, you’ve probably never heard or come across them before. Truth be told, the movie both looks and feels like a student project. Which it very well may be, I don’t know, because once again I can’t find all that much background information on it (a disappointing deficiency I find with most of the shorts I try to look up). All I can clearly discern from it is that it has no budget to speak of. Like, none. So, really, the movie’s not great. But it also had some okay moments, so I’m willing to give them a gold sta-… On second thought, let’s not be so hasty. Uh, maybe silver?… Yes, I’m willing to give it a silver star for effort.



My main point of contention, is of course the plot. Not so much that the idea is bad, because it’s not. It’s a perfectly serviceable idea that simply suffers from a complete lack of funds. The real issue is that there are a lot of little oversight-like things that start to build up over time that are either going to make you roll your eyes or laugh every time you notice them. And yes, while some of them are due to budget and experience issues, much of the issues still lie squarely with the source material.

We begin our story in Nadia’s apartment. Joseph shows up first, sporting an updated grunge look, and goes into the bathroom to pretty himself up. The other three friends arrive, dragging all their supplies with them and immediately sit down. Why did they bother to take their luggage out of their cars and lug it all inside if they were just going to have to lug it all back outside and into Nadia’s car? Don’t know. Seems like a grand waste of effort to me. Also, they start watching TV almost immediately, despite the fact that they’re supposed to be leaving, clearly indicating that no one actually wants to go on this trip.



Jess asks where Joseph is. Cole responds by telling her he’s in the bathroom. Since this friend came in later, he should have no way of knowing this, as he did not see, nor was he told this information. Perhaps he is secretly psychic. Nadia then proceeds to complain about Joseph taking too long in the bathroom. According to the timestamp, he’s been in there for less than a minute. Nadia clearly needs to take a chill pill. I hear Valium is cheap these days. Joseph then emerges seconds later, looking… exactly the same as he did before he walked in. One wonders what he was doing in there, but considering the short length of time he was in there, I suspect he didn’t wash his hands. Whatever. Thankfully this whole silly scene is over now and they can finally get to the cabin.



… Oh, I’m sorry. My mistake. First we have to watch them get out of the car (half of them are blurry), unpack their luggage (it is not blurry) and inexplicably walk to the cabin, because… reasons, I guess. And it helps pad out the film. But according to Nadia it’s only a 15-minute hike, so this whole scene should only take a couple of secon-… No, no of course it doesn’t. We have to watch them walk off (from what is clearly the main road). Then watch them through some trees at a funky angle. Watch them complain a couple times. Watch them swat at some bugs and complain some more. Then watch them stop for a break (TF, guys?) and some casual sword fighting with sticks (as one does), because they got lost or something (I don’t know.) But whatever the case may be, it’s obvious that this exchange is taking way too long (three minutes!) and that none of these people have any business camping.


They did find some nice sticks though.

Then they finally get to the cottage (thank GOD!), while walking up to it from the main road (why couldn’t they just park there?). The Cottage has a helpful sign in front labeled “The Cottage”, just in case you fell into a trance due to all the monotony up to this point and you forgot what you were watching, or you’re just stupid. Apparently they are absolutely exhausted and “so tired” from their long, arduous journey through the lush, shaded, and flat woodlands, and they demand to take a break. And they say this as if the cottage they were staying at isn’t 5ft in front of them. Like, just go inside, you lazy bums. What a bunch of whiny, weak bitches. But wait, I guess they have to “check in” first? Suggesting there’s someone else around? So I guess that means there’s a main cabin somewhere? Don’t know, but all of them go to hang out on the porch and… No one ever checks in? Not that I see anyway.



No matter though, because we’re on to the next plot point: Nick has to pee. And the cottage doesn’t have indoor plumbing (despite clearly being on the main road and wired for electricity) and for some reason he doesn’t want to use the outhouse that’s right there, or one of the many bushes nearby. But he doesn’t have to go THAT  bad, because he says there were some bathrooms back where they parked, so he’s going to go back there (maybe there was a McDonald’s we never saw), because spending half an hour walking to the car and back makes more sense to him than just peeing in the woods like a normal person. Nadia offers to accompany him on his trek to pee, but he declines. So instead of escorting the guy she has a crush on to the toilet, she and Jess go off to collect firewood, which amounts to about a dozen small sticks between the two of them that they collected from the giant tree right next to the house (perhaps the only neat set piece in the entire movie) and then just casually toss them next to the steps as they head back up into the cottage, because like I said, none of these numb-nuts have any business camping and… Have I made my point yet? Because I could go on (and on and on), but the entire movie is like this and I’ve only gotten up to…. Uh, about the first third of the movie at this point, and I don’t want this write-up to be 10 pages long.

In short, holy crap, you guys are killing me with all these weird little things.


I’m just posting this ‘cause of the tree, but please also note all the “firewood” they’ve picked up.

Now, ALL THAT SAID, I thought most of the dialogue was actually pretty good. And by that I mean that most of it sounds very natural, like how a group of late teens or early twenty-somethings would probably talk if you were, I don’t know, eavesdropping on their weird banter at a restaurant or something. So that’s all good. Plus there were also a couple of moments where the comedy actually got a chuckle out of me. Like when two of the guys find themselves in a diss-off, and one of them pulls out the standard “yo mamma” diss and the following exchange between them proceeds as something like this:

“Bro, that’s not cool. You’ve met my mom. She was nice to you. She baked you cookies the last time you were over.”
“You’re right, Bro. That was wrong of me.”
“Bro…”
“I’m sorry, Bro. I liked those cookies.”
“I’ll tell her, Bro.”
“Bro…?”
“Bro!”
*and then they Bro hug*

And meanwhile one of the girls with them is just standing there, watching this whole exchange between two grown-ass men like, “WTF is wrong with these numskulls?” It’s just really a shame that the acting in this film isn’t any better, or they might have been able to pull off more stupid, cheesy moments like this to better effect.

As it stands, they barely pulled this one off.

So…uh…Yeah. The Cottage isn’t great. The idea is okay, but the execution is just…not, I’m sorry to say. And I know that part of that is that they had no real money to work with. Which is why the sound sometimes gets warbly, some one’s line ends up dubbed, some scenes start off being blurry or out of focus, or wind up being way too dark, or the camera jerks suddenly for no apparent reason, probably because they don’t have a decent tripod or dolly or some such thing at their disposal. And that’s certainly also the reason why their only “special effect” is the light dimming and brightening back up. Like, that’s it. THAT’S as special as it gets. And it’s likely also why when one of them becomes possessed (or whatever was going on there) you never see them speaking when possessed. They probably didn’t have the funds (or time) to get the ‘creepy demon voice’ to sync up with the actor’s mouth movements.



But those are technical things that I can kind of understand. The plot points are a whole other story. I think that part of the weirdness is that they were trying to be funny, and sometimes that just didn’t pan out like they’d hoped. And another part is that I think they were just trying to make the movie longer than necessary, so they added unnecessary elements that bogged down the pacing. But the real issue is that for a movie that’s supposed to be (at least in part) a ‘horror’ film, it just really isn’t all that scary. And on top of that, there’s no real build-up or explanation about what the hell is going on at the cottage. We get one hint on their ‘hike’, from a placard that states that the area was once inhabited by the Salem Witches before they moved to Salem. But why they’re bothering these kids or what their endgame may be is completely unknown. These poor chuckle-heads just show up and – BAM! – they’re being tormented by eerie darkness. Like, they didn’t even stupidly open a creepy human skin bound book and try to read from it or anything. They were just hanging out on the porch. And I don’t know, maybe the ghosts of the witches got tired of their nonsense and just wanted them to shut the hell up, but it would have been nice for there to have been at least some time dedicated to understanding what was happening, as opposed to all the time they spent on explaining who had a crush on who, and what said person was going to do about it.



Bottom line though: The Cottage is okay. It has its problems, but considering it someone’s early film, it’s still very watchable. And some of the oddities make parts of it very amusing. So I’m willing to let a lot slide. Especially considering that they didn’t resort to a lot of scenes of “let’s all wander aimlessly around in the dark” which they very well could have done (though they did do a lot of wandering in the daytime…). Granted, I could have done without all the silly, drawn-out relationship nonsense. But all and all, it’s not too bad if you’re looking for something a little light-hearted and silly. But if you’re looking for something actually scary, then you should divert your attention elsewhere.

The Cottage is available on a variety of streaming services.

The Cottage is does not appear to have had a physical release.

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