Producer: Paul Schiff   Director: Alejandro Brugués   Screenplay: Chris LaMont and Joseph Russo   Cast: Bob Gunton, Peyton List, Briana Middleton, Rachel Nichols, Austin Stowell, David Walton and Reese Alexander   Distributor: Vertical

Grade: C-

Wealthy Charles Abernathy (veteran character actor Bob Gunton) reveals early on to his four grown children—C.J. (David Walton), Madeline (Rachel Nichols), Kami (Peyton List) and Drew (Austin Stowell)—that he’d once made a deal with the devil to ensure his success, and the debt has now come due.  The occasion is his seventy-fifth birthday, which he’s commanded all of them to join him at his isolated mansion to celebrate.  But it turns out that his motivation is more complicated, and so is the guest list, because while only his offspring were supposed to come, Drew has brought along his girlfriend Hannah (Briana Middleton).

It seems that Charles’ life has been threatened by his creditors, who intend to kill him by midnight.  He’s therefore invited his children not so much to celebrate, as to protect him.  And he gives them an incentive.  If he survives, they’ll receive their inheritance, but if not, he’ll give all his money to charity and they’ll get nothing.  He offers Hannah the chance to leave, but she declines, so when he locks down the place with steel covering the windows and all the exits shuttered, she’s trapped there too. 

The younger Abernathys are a diverse lot.  Twins C.J. and Madeline are cynical and greedy: he runs the news portion of his father’s empire, she the entertainment side.  Straight-arrow Drew’s in charge of the Abernathy charities, and Hannah helps him.  Kami is the outlier, having created a lucrative career as a social media fashion influencer.  But though they lock the old man away for his safety, they treat their responsibility very differently—Drew considers it a serious job, while Kami thinks it’s all a joke.  As for C.J. and Madeline, they’re just around to make sure of getting their share of daddy’s money.

All of them are soon disabused of their expectations as deaths begin to occur.  Not Charles’s however—the children’s.  Director Alejandro Brugués, production designer Eric Norlin, cinematographer Vincent De Paula and editors Steve Mirkovich and Halima K. Gilliam stage them with some élan, even if the performances don’t match the setting and the camerawork and the score by Mondo Boys fail to ratchet up the tension as intended.         

The essential problem with “The Inheritance,” though, is that the narrative veers quickly from murder mystery into supernatural territory, and the explanatory revelation, especially for anybody who’s watched Mike Flanagan’s more elaborate Netflix series “The Fall of the House of Usher,” will come as a letdown.  A frantic chase involving the villain and the proverbial last person standing goes on too long, a last-minute twist makes it even less plausible, and the visual effects that play a prominent part in the finale are less than stellar. 

So while there’s considerable stylishness on display here, and it’s nice to see Gunton play a larger role than usual, this is a horror thriller that ultimately unravels disappointingly.  It’s no wonder that Netflix, which had originally contracted to carry the film as an original, dropped it, leaving it to be picked up by Vertical for distribution. Perhaps the streaming service knew best.