Director: Parker Finn
Cast: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Kal Penn
Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Kinda bummed they couldn’t bring this thing on to Paramount+ (by all indications it was originally produced with a streaming release in mind) at the same time as theaters, as my love affair with going to the movies, but such is life at the moment.
Did I Like It: The movie has about half a dozen good jump scares, which is more than a lot of movies have going for them. That has to count for something, right? The reactions of the family and friends at the birthday party are legitimately unsettling, but feels inessential to the larger proceedings, and exists only to be unsettling for unsettling’s sake. I’m willing to admit that’s probably intentional on the part of the filmmakers, even if it feels as if the film isn’t fully capitalizing fully on its strengths.
I’d dwell on the fact that there’s just enough doubt riddled throughout the film as to whether or not something supernatural is actually happening to Rose Cotter (Bacon), or whether the trifecta of stress, trauma, and family history is causing here to see things, but the moment the curse manifests as just another forgettable CGI monster, the question both isn’t answered and is rendered effectively meaningless.
What I really want to dwell on, and it is bugging me still nearly a week after screening the film is this: Why are horror movies obsessed with fashionably appointed kitchens as of late? Between this and The Night House (2021)*, I get the sense that the production design of horror movies and the romantic comedies of Nancy Meyers have improbably merged into a single aesthetic.
*Incidentally, there is an almost total certainty that in no sooner than a year’s time, the details—grins aside—of both of these movies will blend together and become largely interchangeable. I think it may already be happening.