Between Two Waves

Cass Milligan returns to her family home on the coast after a long-term absence, her arrival marking the beginning of a descent into a darkness that threatens to consume her. It's been years since Cass has stepped foot in the house where she grew up, though memories of those days remain etched vividly in her mind. Cass's return to her childhood home is motivated by the sudden loss of her mother. She's been keeping a safe distance from her troubled past, using work and other pursuits to keep the demons of her childhood at bay. Her parents' relationship was complicated, marked by tension and pain. It's this delicate emotional landscape that serves as the backdrop for Cass's struggles. Upon entering the family home, Cass is taken aback by the realization that the house feels abandoned, yet somehow still holds a deep connection to her. She begins to witness strange happenings - the sound of doors opening and closing on their own, disembodied whispers, and the faint scent of her mother's perfume lingering in the air. As rumors of paranormal activity spread, Cass is no longer alone in her feelings of being watched and hearing voices. In an immediate response to Cass's escalating fear, her twin brother, Charlie, reappears in her life after years of estrangement. Charlie has always been protective and supportive of Cass, serving as her confidant during their family's complicated years. Despite his reassurance, Cass isn't convinced that Charlie is truly motivated by a desire to help, or if his intentions are merely to intervene out of obligation. The tension between them reaches a boiling point as they attempt to reconcile their often-fractured relationship. As they sift through old family records and uncover long-buried secrets, the truth begins to surface. Memories, which Cass had long suppressed, slowly resurface, illuminating a painful history. It is clear to Cass now that she had been silencing these memories with narcotics to temporarily numb her emotional pain and avoid confronting them. Through Charlie, Cass is able to grasp the gravity of their family situation long ago. During the latter half of the film, the story begins to diverge. As more pieces of Cass's traumatic past begin to come to light, Cass, and the film viewers alike, are caught in a stormy dialogue questioning whether Cass has been losing her grip on reality over the death of her mother and experiences of her childhood, or if her increasingly erratic behavior stems from something more sinister. Meanwhile, evidence mounts that it may not be just a case of Cass's imagination playing tricks on her; a series of unsettling encounters deepen our understanding of the past that has led her here. She enlists Charlie's support as the twin siblings dig deeper into the truth behind the unexplained events. At the film's climax, it is revealed that there were multiple events of child endangerment that took place in the home's past, specifically by their dad. Cass struggles for a lot of this movie with overcoming the painful experiences and even delves briefly into a place called 'separation anxiety', where her body experienced her mother not having died yet, causing confusion. The more horrific memory Cass and Charlie unearth about her childhood, the darker and more intense her mental state becomes, ultimately pushing her closer to some catastrophic end.