Do Not Disturb

This VOD horror-adjacent character study looks at newlyweds on their honeymoon in Miami, where drugs, lust and resentment combine for grisly results.

You probably know — or maybe have been — that couple that has been together forever despite not seeming like a very good fit.

They resist getting married, though even when they do that seems to only exacerbate their issues rather than rectify them. All their friends encourage them to their faces but whisper behind their backs whisper about how they are destined for divorce… or the crime blotter.

Chloe (Kimberly Laferriere) and Jack (Rogan Christopher) are just such a couple. In “Do Not Disturb,” a low-budget horror/character study hitting video on demand Nov. 17, their lack of compatibility builds up to some truly grisly results.

There are some interesting things going on in the horror-adjacent film, and Laferrier gets to play some moody notes as a woman who feels trapped by her own bad choices. Unfortunately the movie is slow-moving and predictable, and feels long even at 92 minutes.

Writer/director John Ainslie probably would have been better off keeping this to a short.

Things are already tense between Chloe and Jack as they land in Miami for their honeymoon. It becomes clear they got married only after she badgered him into doing so.

Jack is clearly not ready for such a commitment — emotionally, financially or otherwise. He’s a dimwitted, id-driven man-child.

They’ve chosen a low-end adults-only resort for their vacation, not just to save money but so Jack doesn’t have to be bothered by children, or have Chloe experiencing maternal craving.

Interestingly, during their many arguments, it’s always Chloe who slaps or hits Jack, rather than the other way around. It’s a reflection of actual statistics surrounding domestic violence, though that’s something people don’t like to talk about.

Her dissatisfaction in their relationship is the driving force in what comes after. “We were supposed to be in a different place right now, and we’re not,” she laments.

A couple of encounters shape the rest of their experience. They run into older couple, Wayne and Wendy (Christian McKenna and Janet Porter), who immediately glom onto them. It soon becomes clear they’re looking to swing, and not playground style.

On the beach they run into a crazed man (Rupinder Nagra) who wakes up after a night of debauchery. He dumps a considerable amount of peyote and other drugs at their feet, rambling about a party on a boat he was on, which he soon decamps to find again.

Jack wants to use some of the drugs and sell the rest to fund good times, which Chloe eventually gives into. The rest of the movie is spent almost entirely in their hotel room as things become increasingly surreal and bloody.

They’ll wake up from a drug haze unsure how much time has passed — seemingly hours, they think, but then they’ll see what looks like days worth of room service plates piled up. In a most disturbing turn of events, they find a lot of blood and Jack is missing a chunk of flesh from his shoulder.

Was this a result of an encounter with others… or did their lovemaking become something primal and horrifying?

I think you’ll know the answer, and things continue down that path for the usual horror-movie tropes.

“Do Not Disturb” — not to be confused with another 2023 movie of the same title — falls into that category of an idea for a movie that’s more interesting than the one they actually made.