Motivations are scarce or slow to reveal themselves until far too late. Plot beats prominently showcased wind up not amounting to much or lacking in meaning, removing any stakes or nuance in the process. Before Marquis even appears on the screen, his character arc begins aurally, setting up deep-seated daddy issues that don’t factor in with any purpose outside of possibly explaining why he might be predisposed to surviving a clan of rural hoodoo practitioners. It takes far too long for Eloise’s reasoning for keeping Marquis prisoner to present itself, and when it does, the knee-jerk response is that we’ve seen it handled much more coherently before already. Devine gives it her all to imbue Eloise with charming menace, but there’s nothing for her to sink her teeth into. Marquis is a character forced to make baffling choices. All of which to say that