Less than five months after his terrific Carry-On premiered on Netflix, one of my favourite current directors, Jaume Collet-Serra, is back with his first horror film since 2016’s The Shallows. The talented Danielle Deadwyler stars as Ramona, a widowed single mother who was disabled after a car accident that killed her husband. She is suffering with grief, guilt and financial problems and is struggling to care for their two children Taylor and Annie. One day, a mysterious woman draped in black appears in the front yard of their isolated farm house, claiming that “Today’s the day”.
Collet-Serra’s forte is in the action genre but he also knows how to deliver chills with the use of striking visual imagery. I found parts of this story, especially when Annie was in peril, quite unsettling. However, there were some serious flaws in Sam Stefanak’ screenplay. As is so common with so many modern horror films, towards the end, so many disparate ideas are thrown into the pot in order to ramp up the terror and, consequently, the story loses coherence. Also, I appreciate that he was trying to examine the grieving process, but the use of metaphors is over done and clumsy.
But, the combination of Deadwyler and Collet-Serra do enough to make this worth your while.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10