Never Let Go

Review by Mark Woodring

This one looked interesting: Halle Berry as a possibly insane mother keeping her kids tied to a cabin in the woods to protect them from an Evil outside…?

Wait: cabin in the woods? What the–?

**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**

Never Let Go - Review
Never Let Go (Lionsgate)

 

101 Minutes, Rated R
Written by KC Coughlin, Ryan Grassby
Directed by Alexandre Aja

 

Synopsis:

A family that has been haunted by an evil spirit for years. Their safety and their surroundings come into question when one of the children questions if the evil is real.

 

So… cabin in the woods. Okay, that’s always a promising start to a horror/thriller movie.

Director Alexandre Aja has directed some other movies I’ve rather enjoyed, such as High Tension, Crawl, and (to a lesser extent) Oxygen, so the pedigree is good.

Halle Berry is exquisite here as the mother, desperately trying to keep her children safe from an evil they cannot see. We are treated to some interesting backstory about her parents building the house, how it would protect them, and how they learned the ropes could carry that protection beyond its walls.

But the world-building, as interesting as what we see is, is also lacking in some ways. What carries Never Let Go is Berry’s convincing turn as the protector and the madwoman.

The tension ratches up throughout the film, as we edge closer and closer to this protected little world falling apart, until finally, it does.

With a bang. While the evil mother claims can infect them with a touch is successfully being held at bay, conflict nonetheless finds its way inside the walls through doubt: doubt that the evil is real after a accidental foray off the rope doesn’t result in disaster.

And doubt between her sons is enough…

The situation rapidly devolves (I won’t spoil it for you), but when an outsider appears, the question becomes, is he real or the evil trying to tempt them away from the house to destroy them?

All of this leads up to a climactic battle between, and when the dust clears, we’re still not sure of whether the evil is real or if mental illness runs in the family.

It’s a perfectly ambiguous ending, an ending we can discuss endlessly and dissect for years to convince one another of which —

Nope. Scratch that. The film, in an instant, answers the question definitively, putting all doubt aside. Nothing to see here, folks, go back to your lives.

And that makes me sad. So much atmosphere and tension built up, then thrown away.

Damn it.

Never Let Go sequesters itself in theaters this Friday, September 20 and stars Halle Berry, Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV, William Catlett, Matthew Kevin Anderson, Mila Morgan, and Stephanie Lavigne.

And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.

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