‘Don’t Come Here’ VOD Review
Stars: Joan Iyiola, Arazou, Nikolas Salmon, Jorja James, Rhys Howells, Onur Cocen, Benjamin Grant-Ewen, Xavier Nunez, Lina Mira, Isidro Tellez | Written by Brook Judge | Directed by Douglas Thompson
Directed by Douglas Thompson, Don’t Come Here is a slow, simmering thriller that trades jump scares for tension you can actually feel. Set in Mallorca, the film takes the familiar “tourists in trouble” setup and gives it a distinctly European flavour. It’s uneven at times, but something is intriguing about the way Thompson builds paranoia out of heat, silence, and too much open space.
The story follows two women on a working holiday who cross paths with a group of stranded English tourists. With nothing better to do, the seven of them decide to go hiking in the mountains – and that’s despite the locals’ half-serious warnings to stay away. Predictably, things start to go wrong: someone disappears, a body turns up, and suddenly everyone’s looking over their shoulder. Are they being hunted, or are they turning on each other? Rumours of old local legends and a mysterious hitchhiker only add to the confusion.
What’s interesting about Don’t Come Here is how it flirts with horror without ever quite diving in. Sure, it borrows the setup of a backwoods slasher: the isolated location, the lost group, the unseen threat, etc., but it’s really more of a slow-burn mystery. Thompson plays with clues and misdirection, forcing the audience to do the work of figuring out what’s real. Sometimes that restraint pays off, and other times, the film’s mystery feels more vague than interesting. The final twist is bold, if not totally convincing, but it’s the kind of risk that shows Thompson is aiming higher than your average genre exercise.
Visually, though, the movie’s a standout. Mallorca looks incredible here, not the touristy beaches, but the wild, unforgiving parts tourists rarely see. The cinematography captures that uneasy contrast between beauty and danger; the landscapes feel both open and suffocating at once. For a low-budget movie, it looks fantastic, and Thompson clearly knows how to use scenery to carry the mood when the dialogue doesn’t quite get there.
The cast, unfortunately, is hit-or-miss. The two female leads are excellent, and thanks to their performances, the characters are believable, grounded, and genuinely sympathetic. The rest of the group is less consistent; some performances feel real, others like they’re straight out of a community-theatre mystery. That unevenness keeps the tension from fully landing in a few key moments.
Still, there’s a lot to admire in how Don’t Come Here handles tone. The paranoia feels real, the group dynamics are messy in just the right way, and there’s a slow build of dread that never relies on gore. Sometimes the film hides too much, keeping action off-screen in a way that feels more frustrating than suspenseful, but even then you can tell Thompson’s trying to make something more psychological than sensational.
By the time the ending arrives, it’s a bit of a stretch, but it doesn’t undo what came before. Even with its flaws, Don’t Come Here stays engaging from start to finish. It’s not the kind of thriller that shouts horror; instead, the unease creeps up on you like the heat of the Mallorcan sun, which you don’t realise is making you dizzy.
In the end, Thompson’s film works best as a story about fear and mistrust. About how quickly people unravel when the rules of civilisation stop applying. It’s not perfect, but it’s promising; for a film called Don’t Come Here, it’s actually one you’ll want to visit.
*** 3/5
Don’t Come Here is out now on digital from High Fliers.
