Written by Luke Barnes
Summary
A rental house with a mysterious woman, played by Matthew Patrick Davis, living underneath it turns into a life or death struggle for several of its occupants.
I thought this was quite a smart art house horror film. Clearly there was more to it than a lot of the generic genre fare that comes out in the multiplexes these days, in many ways it reminded me of the films of Jordan Peele, smart horror wherein the themes and broader societal comments become almost more important than the horror itself.
However, I also did think this film had a number of good scary scenes, particularly the death of Bill Skarsgard’s character, as well as the flashbacks with Richard Brake. I think this film can be quite scary when it wants to be and the monster of The Mother is easily a new one for genre diehards to latch onto. I enjoyed that they never fully explained how the Mother was the way she was, because whilst they do say she is the product of copious inbreeding, that doesn’t explain her ability to withstand so much violence done to her by the main characters and then just carry on again in the next scene, there has to be more to it.
The one thing I didn’t much care for was the mid movie twist wherein after the seeming death of our two main characters we then meet AJ, played by Justin Long, an actor turned predator. During our time with him the film goes to great lengths to talk about career ending allegations and guilt, but I feel like all of this has been done better and said in a more timely manner. Not to say that this is no longer and important conversation, it is, but it has really missed the fever pitch when these sort of debates were happening all the time. In addition the way the film handles these topics and conversations lacks any kind of grace or nuance and sometimes feels a little in bad taste.
Overall, a good film for the most part with a few baffling choices made that drag it down somewhat.
Pros.
The monster
The mystery
The ending
Cons.
The MeToo stuff
It doesn’t fully make the most of its premise
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Another Millennial Reviewer 