Kate Emerson returns to her childhood home in Chicago after her father's sudden stroke, only to awaken a malevolent force lurking within his unfinished painting. As the entity grows stronger, feeding off Kate's grief and despair, she must delve into the artwork's sinister history and confront the encroaching darkness that threatens to consume her.
Overall, this was an immensely impressive and enjoyable effort. The central setup featured here, starting with the distressed phone call to alert her to her father's condition, the race to get to him, and the series of obstacles that emerge as the situation gets expanded upon to the point of being able to understand the details surrounding her father, create a harrowing scenario which is quite thrilling to play out. By the time the extent of the father's situation is known and the relationship that develops with her friend while trying to get everything with her father sorted out, there's a great baseline here that sets up the kind of slow-building discovery of supernatural beings to come into play. That everything is set up nicely not just with the opening prologue setting up everything with the traditional influx of shenanigans to let loose the later scenes.
This secondary series of supernatural events after the revelation that everything was released during a fateful seance session involving the father trying to contact the spirit of his dead wife which is wisely kept as a sinister presence bubbling under the surface of the interctions after the fact. As the hints of the crows come to pass and the discovery of the intent behind the seance comes to light, there's some fantastic work here involving the release of the supernatural entity haunting the property following the incident which is given a great boost in the second half when it finally gains enough power to start ramping up the encounters which keep things balanced incredibly well between thrilling and heartbreaking. As the secondary storyline involving how her grief has left her vulnerable to the demonic being and letting the emotional or physical support she receives from her friend being there to help her in the battle, this keeps everything moving along nicely for a well-rounded read in every regard.
5/5