Never Let Go

  Never Let Go is a solid post-apocalyptic horror film from the very reliable French genre craftsman Alexandre Aja. It looked a little too similar to any number of recent offerings, but thankfully it's got a little more on its mind than trying to be the next A Quiet Place.

 Momma (Halle Berry - that's her character's name in the credits) lives alone with her two children at a cabin in the woods. She insists the world outside has been taken over by an inchoate, shape-shifting, mind-affecting Evil, and that. The three of them are the last human beings on earth, and the Evil hungers for them.

 Whether this is a highly allegorical delusion or not is basically fuels the whole movie. Her sons - Sam (Anthony B. Jenkins), the eldest, is dutiful and responsible, while Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) is a little more rambunctious and questioning of her mother's... well, patently batshit insane worldview. Then again, this is a horror movie.

 The invading Evil manifests in ghosts that only Momma can see, taking on the shape of ghosts from her past: her mom, her husband (whom, we soon learn, she both killed when she discovered they had been taken over by The Evil). I like that it's made explicit that they won't show themselves to her children to drive a wedge of incredulity between them. In any case, a single touch from The Evil is all that's needed for it to be able to possess you thoroughly. 

 The only protection is the house itself, which The Evil can't breach. What's more, this protection can be extended via ropes tied to a post in the attic; As long as Momma and the children are tethered to them, The Evil can't touch them as they go outside to hunt and forage for food. Momma's developed a sort of quasi-religious series of rituals centered around the house, an easy analog for traditionalism and belief.

 It all fits in very nicely with the recent streak of horror movies that have rules that seem like something straight out of children's games.

 After a particularly brutal winter (which drains the family food reserves in a rather lovely montage), tensions come to a head between Momma and Nolan. There's a pretty fun development that sends the third act in a slightly different direction than I expected, but all in all it's a really simple survival-focused story with a possibly supernatural, blatantly allegorical edge.

 As a genre film, it's a bit of a mixed bag. I lean positive, because it's got some excellent, very tense scenes, a commendable sense of cruelty, and a solid throughline. It's full of little vignettes like an anecdote Momma tells about finding a wounded hiker and forcing herself to watch as she slowly died as a sort of test of faith (everyone but her family is possessed in her worldview); Fucking hell that's grim. But... I'd be lying if I didn't say I found the script (by KC Coughlin and Ryan Grassby) frustrating.
 Its ideas seem are fairly derivative, and the refusal to commit to any given interpretation (depending on how reliable you deem the camera's point of view to be) is not very satisfying; Ambiguity needs to give us a lot more to chew on to not feel like a cop out - and however you chose to interpret the events here, there's simply not a lot to either choice. That one of the final shots of the film is yet another flip-flop kind of soured me on it (as always, movies that end on a bum note have it harder than worse films that manage to stick the landing).
 Also funny: The Evil is heavily snake-people-inspired. Dear reader, snake people! David Icke was right all along!

 But for all its flaws, I do think most of the movie is good. Slow, but enthralling. Aja obviously knows his way around an intense horror scene, and his unfussy but stately direction (which includes novelistic chapter headings) adds a lot to the proceeds. Cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, meanwhile, gives the moss-shrouded British Columbia woods a downbeat, sometimes otherworldly feel, and the effects are decent. The acting is a highlight: Halle Berry is fierce and, to be honest, fucking scary in a sort of Carrie's mom deluded fundamentalist way, and the two kids - who are convincingly, heartbreakingly tiny - are terrific; The film gets an enormous, if exploitative jolt of energy by putting them up against starvation, Momma's 'teachings' and more metaphysical dangers.

 Both critics and audiences were less than kind, and the film remains a box-office bomb with a slightly tepid reputation. I get it, I really do. This isn't one of those cases where I feel the need to champion a maligned masterpiece or anything like that. Apparently they already had a prequel and a sequel developed in the works, and that's the sort of empire building I really can't get behind.
 Flawed as it is, though, it's still a cool little survival story with some good, jagged horror shrapnel deeply embedded on its lean meat.

Horns

  Once upon a time, the son of the King of horror published two great books, one right after the other (in addition to a killer set of short stories). One of them was an incredibly cinematic yarn, ready made with iconic J-Horror-style imagery. The other one was a bizarre romance/horror/comedy hybrid that seemed designed to drive any foolish scriptwriter who took it on insane for their troubles.

 Guess which got a movie adaptation?

 To be fair, there's still hope that we'll see Heart-Shaped Box in one form or another; Neil Jordan wrote an adaptation and almost got it made way back in 2007, maybe he'll be able to rescue it from limbo at some point... or someone else will. It seems inevitable now people can put "From the author of Black Phone" on the movie poster.

 You know what they probably won't put in the poster? Joe Hill's previous big screen adaptation: 2013's Horns, which to be perfectly honest, is not a bad stab at filming a pretty unconventional novel. I'd avoided it for ages on the back of some bad reviews, despite liking most of director Alexandre Aja's movies. And now I've seen it... yeah, I get it, it's not great - definitely not a patch on the book - but it's still pretty good a lot of the time.

 The first line of the movie: "Are you horny?" Is indicative of one of the film's main problems, which is a sort of flippant, low-effort smart-arse-ness going on on the script that doesn't really work. It's uttered by Merrin Williams (Juno Temple), who's been going out with Ig Perrin (Daniel Radcliffe) ever since they were in grade school, as they lay side-by-side in a sunny patch of woodland. Then comes the film's best moment: The camera pans downwards from this idyllic scene, through the ground, and comes out the other side with an inverted, bleak-as-hell shot of Ig passed out in alcoholic stupor on his kitchen floor.

 On the nose? Sure, but it's also a phenomenal - and fun! - bit of visual storytelling.

 Merrin is dead - found raped and murdered in (presumably) the same stretch of woods we saw her in with Ig earlier. Ig is the prime suspect, but the ongoing investigation has stalled, even if everyone - including the police - have condemned him in their minds.

 Ig's life is, understandably, in a downward spiral. And soon it takes a turn for the weird when horns start sprouting from his head.

 Not that people pay attention to them; They can see them, but somehow they find them hard to remember or get worked up about; No, the main effect they have is to get people to confess to their darkest urges. To bring them to the fore. This leads to some pretty effective, if broad, black comedy as Ig acts as a sort of unknowing advocate for people to indulge in their base impulses. Similar to a superhero learning to use their powers, but with more public sex.

 It doesn't take long before Ig starts using his newfound abilities to try and find Merrin's killer. The whodunnit aspect is undone by a fairly weak villain and a beyond terrible, rote resolution, but the film does have a fair amount of fun getting there.

 French madman Alexandre Aja directs from a script by Keith Bunin. Aja fails in the predictable ways - he's more attuned to creating mayhem than character work, but his sensibility does give the film a bit of a kick, and he's more than happy to make the film pretty... well, horny, including an athletic sex scene. Remember when films had sex scenes?

 The tone, which was always going to be tricky, given the source material, is all over the place, but there's a definite attempt to drown out the black comedy as the film heads to darker places. It doesn't completely work, but it's reasonably well handled - and it's a very pacey movie even at two hours.

 I'm not a fan of a couple of attempts to paint Ig as an avenging, uh, angel, which feel a bit extraneous and out of character for both Ig and the movie, and as mentioned before the ending is a complete misfire. I suspect the movie would be much better remembered if they had found a better way to cap things off.

 The acting is mostly good. Radcliffe makes for a surprisingly compelling put-upon weirdo, and is pretty convincing as an American (though I should probably say that, as a non-native English speaker, my ear for accents is pretty iffy). There's also a handful of old pros giving the film a bit of class (Kathleen Quinlan, James Remar and David Morse), an extremely fun turn from Heather Graham, and a very likeable one for Joe Anderson as Ig's big brother. I did have some big issues with one of the roles, but I'll skip that because it'd edge into spoiler territory.

 Effects-wise it's mostly ok, though the main fireworks come out during the film's weakest moment. Aja wisely reins back his bloodlust, and the handful of gore shots are well made and are appropriately upsetting when they need to be. The cinematography (from Frederick Elmes) is good - all chilly Northeastern ambiance - and there's a couple of fun shots throughout the movie (none as good as that opening).

 The elephant in the room is the novel, which... well, yeah, it towers above the movie in pretty much any aspect you can think about. It's a complex one, so that was always going to be the case. Besides the loss of its more literary qualities, my main issues are that two important characters - Merrin and the killer - have been cut down in ways that do a huge disservice to the story, and the necessities of a Hollywood movie shift the story focus more to the whodunnit and revenge aspects, which were relatively minor in the book and result in a pretty unsatisfying conclusion to the story. Especially when it's all "Revenge is bad, OK?" and then it still tacks on the book's more upbeat ending in a way that feels completely unearned.

 Then again, book=good / movie=not-as-good is hardly news. It's still decent fun: funny, off-kilter, well-made and interesting - even if it's not in any way essential like the book is.