Director: Shan Serafian
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
After a series of slight issues, an unemployed scientist trying to come to terms with the problems in his marriage tries to get back to a competent state of mind with his wife, but when he starts to question his own sanity he tries to come to terms with the malevolent entity controlling his life.
Review:
This was an enjoyable if slightly flawed genre effort. Among the more enjoyable features here is the generally enjoyable and engrossing setup that depicts the current state of their marriage and how they arrived at the strained point. Getting enough of a glimpse about their early days where it’s all built around the two being much more loose and comfortable with each other just as a normal married couple will be, the contrast between these flashbacks and the dreary, depressing current day scenes offers a fantastic portrait of a strained couple about to hit their breaking point. All the different issues brought up, from the lack of employment to the abortion without his consent or knowledge and the physical altercations that are featured here, give this a pretty strong foundation for what's to come later on.
When it comes to supernatural attacks, this one does have some fun elements to it. The idea of the couple having a series of marital issues bringing about some confrontations with supposed demons altering the course of their lives gives this a somewhat tense setup that's continued nicely with a series of revelations in the latter half. Featuring the altered mindset between everyone here where it turns into the different figures looking to control his life, whether it turns out to be the couple who claim to be the parents or the other figure who comes into the picture claiming to be one of them which enables all sorts of impressive tricks and deception that carries on throughout the final half in a fun series of twists that are quite surprising. These are what hold the film up overall.
There are some issues to be had with this one. The biggest issue is that the film's decision to focus more on the marital strife between them there's not much in the way of genre action present. Far too much of this one comes off as a troubled-marriage drama than an out-and-out horror film where there's not much going on as the two-person setup is a major hurdle towards including any kind of attack or confrontations that would swing this one into more of a familiar expectation with this setup. That goes hand-in-hand with the series of mind-bending, twist-heavy storyline revelations that make this one unnecessarily more complicated than it needed to be in regards to whether the film was based in reality or a hallucination. That makes it tough to trust what's going on and lessens some of the impacts on the scenes overall, but for the most part, these are the main flaws found here.
Overview: ***/5
Troubled by some rather big issues in the lack of action for the main part of the film, the enjoyable setup and conclusion will mostly keep this one going for most out there as this is quite a fun effort. Really give this one a shot if you're into this particular style or a fan of slow-burn psychological genre fare, while those looking for more of a thrilling piece or not into this setup should heed some caution.
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