Director: Jon Yonkondy
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After moving in with his family, a guy finds a strange being in the attic of his house and brings his friend along to help him protect the creature from his crazed stepfather who wants to turn it over to a government agency for money, and when everyone gets wind of the creatures’ existence race to save him.
Review:
This was a pretty decent family-outing if a highly underwhelming horror effort. That’s to be expected as there’s very little change-over between the two, as the elements that make for a fine effort in one won't work for the other. The relationship between him and the two kids is the forefront of the first half, protecting him from his step-father and his friends, trying to teach him about the ways of the world and generally out enjoying the small-town lifestyle with the three of them together is all cute and heartwarming. The slapstick nature of the stepfather trying to hunt it for his own means adds a nice bungling narrative to the main story and tries nicely to add a thrilling nature to their exploits without tipping over into the more frightening territory which is the opposite of its intentions.
Even with this fine work at building a fun atmosphere, there are some minor flaws with the film. The main issue is the repetitive and familiar that it runs the danger of becoming bland with the way this falls into the trap of storyline beats due to this storyline. The idea of kind-hearted teens protecting an innocent being from nefarious authorities on its trail has been done quite often in the genre and it plays itself through all the familiar tropes to be expected which doesn’t strike as too original, much like the rather cliché storyline involving the creature being there the entire time without anyone realizing. It seems unlikely that something like this would get lost in the manner it would for the length of time it’s happened to be left alone, which is all that really lowers this one.
Overview: ***/5
A fun and at times heartwarming family effort without being too frightening or thrilling, this one works incredibly well in those regards without being too much of a genre film for those who are specifically looking for that. If you’re willing to accept the genre label and go into this one with the mindset of a familiar-if-still-touching kid-friendly piece of entertainment will like this one, while only hardcore horror fans will walk away disappointed with this one.
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