Thursday, October 7, 2021

There's Someone Inside Your House - Not Suspenseful Enough for a Slasher Movie

When I was browsing the new released items on Netflix last night, I found this film which I think I did not notice earlier. It looked interesting and made me intrigued to give it a try. So let's get on with it.

Brief Story Line

The Osborne high school was shocked when one of its student was brutally killed and his dark secret was exposed. Makani Young (Sydney Park - Moxie, Instant Mom TV series etc) who was quite new to the city and her best friends Alexandra (Asjha Cooper), Rodrigo (Diego Josef), Darby (Jesse LaTourette) and Zach (Dale Whibley) thought it was just a one off incident.

That was until another killing happened that got everyone in Osborne High worried. The Deputy sheriff Chriss Larsson (Andrew Dunbar) who tried to solve the case, seemed a bit overwhelmed. Especially since some students suspected the loner Ollie (Théodore Pellerin) who happened to be Sheriff's younger brother. Makani also felt distressed since she had a dark secret of her own.

So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Hmm this movie was not really what I expected. When I read the word slasher (as the movie's categorized), my thoughts would go to those successful slasher films in the 90s and few in recent years. And it actually started off brightly with something that was like a trade mark of the genre. But when we were introduced to the main characters, I thought they were too obviously written to represent various type of people in the current society. Sadly though it did not make me feel attached with them as they were not engaging enough, probably because not sufficient time to give them background story. 

There were not a lot of suspenseful moments for a movie that only has duration of 96 minutes. The intensity was enhanced in the last 20 minutes or so but by then the twist was no longer shocking as somehow it felt quite obvious. Btw, the movie was based on 2018 novel of the same title written by Stephanie Perkins. After reading the brief plot summary of the novel, I felt it has much better story than the adapted film. It's a shame that the movie could not give the proper satisfaction to me, especially with big names like Shawn Levy (Director of Night at the Museum movies, Producer of Stranger Things TV series etc) and James Wan as co-producers. 

The main cast here were generally unfamiliar to me, except for Sydney Park who I had seen previously. Aside from her and Théodore Pellerin, I do not think the rest have strong on screen presence to leave any impression. Few of the killings were done in horrific manner but mostly were not too graphic like other similar movies. And with such variety of characters to give representation and lacking the intensity, made me feel the movie to be too soft as slasher genre.

Overall I thought this one was not too enjoyable for a slasher movie as it was not suspenseful enough, there was no truly shocking twists and the characters were not too engaging. I would have probably liked it better if there were more context given to the characters like it was written in the novel. Or if they want to make it a proper slasher movie, then giving more jump scares & gore killings (even if they are very cliché) would probably more satisfying. So if you are OK with what I mentioned here, then you are welcome to give this movie a try.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

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