Between this and Talk To Me the Philippou brothers just so obviously do not make movies for me, and I fear a third movie that’s anything like these two will be my breaking point.

I’ll applaud them for not making another movie as mean-spirited for no reason as Talk To Me, but the greater ambitions here are still lost. It’s like they want to fill a movie with shock moments and excessive violence but also achieve something meaningful, and instead it’s nothing more than superficial. If the goal was just the former, I’d be more accepting of it, but it couldn’t be more clear that I’m supposed to come out of this having taken away something and yet, what I gathered from the surface didn’t even last as long as the walk from the theater to my car.

Also, and this may just be some distance put between me and a viewing of Talk To Me, but I don’t them making this many poor choices as directors and feeling this insecure. There’s still some talent here, but why do they constantly feel the need to put words to every last image? “She wouldn’t do this” immediately cuts to her doing this. Just one example of a million. There’s a theoretically great phone call scene that felt interrupted by a million cuts, nothing in this movie lasts more than 3, maybe 5 seconds. And it totally takes the atmosphere out of it, a real lack of scares because no tension is built through how horrifying some of these images could’ve been. Talk To Me, despite its flaws, felt full of energy for at least the first half. This just lands so flat if you look beyond any of the terrific performances. Hawkins here is utilized so so well, all three kids are great.

Nowhere near the worst of the worst but frustrating in a way that pisses you off way more than the worst horror movies do, because they’re so close to getting at something really good, but I don’t know if from my perspective they’ll ever get there.