Power's attempt at innovating a story we've seen before is exclusive to the narrative structure, and it's enough to pull you along through a story littered with cookie-cutter characters with no personality, until the timeline breaks back to linear. At that point, the film gets painfully dull. The big problem with Power's time-scrambled structure is that it becomes instantly obvious (in that our main couple NEVER interacts with the family), and it strips away any suspense, tension or mystery. You can ascertain what happens to the family simply because they're never present in the couple's timeline. So, any build up with the family is just spent lying in wait for their untimely demise, which is pitch-black and very hard to stomach, let alone find enjoyment in.

Furthermore, Power's chooses to include several scenes with the local killers outside of the events with the family and the couple. So, we as the viewer know what they look like and what they're about but never really why they do what they do, which is the more interesting exploration if you're gonna take that narrative route. They're easily identified and labeled as a "baddie" right away, well before they ever encounter our main characters, leaving no real pieces for the audience to put together. The film would also be a little more interesting (though, admittedly, not much) if the killers were more complex individuals. Instead, they're very black-and-white, run of the mill yocals who enjoy some murder and rape on occasion. Their behavior and why they do what they do is never explained, so why is it necessary from a narrative standpoint to even show scenes with them outside of the atrocities they commit in the woods? Answer: there really isn't.