Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
After a mysterious woman saves her daughter from a deadly snakebite, a single mother must repay the debt by killing a stranger before sundown.
Rattlesnake is a competently made Netflix thriller with an intriguing supernatural premise — a Faustian bargain set in the Texas desert — but it squanders its potential. The plot is thin and repetitive, cycling through the protagonist's moral dilemma without much depth or tension. Acting is serviceable but unremarkable, with Carmen Ejogo doing her best with underwritten material. The cinematography captures the arid Texas landscape adequately, giving the film some visual identity. The concept borrows heavily from familiar deal-with-the-devil horror tropes and doesn't distinguish itself with any fresh angles. The ending feels rushed and unsatisfying, failing to deliver meaningful resolution or payoff for the moral stakes the film sets up.