Caveat

I really wanted to like this a lot more. The first half or so of this movie drips with atmosphere and weirdness and slow building creepiness. You have an amnesiac drifter who’s been hired to look after a schizophrenic in an isolated house on an island, but he has to wear a jacket attached to a chain so he can’t get in her room. It’s a bizarre but intriguing set-up, and as the questions mount and secrets get revealed, it seems like it’s going somewhere. But the second half never picks up the pace. It keeps going at this laconic pace, even when everything is screaming for it not to. Plot developments and character changes happen because they need to, not because it feels like natural progression. And from an actual viewing perspective, the movie decided to plunge the house it all takes place in into darkness, lit only by the flashlights of the characters. It’s a neat idea on paper, plunging you into darkness just like them. In practice, movies are meant to be seen, and this robs the movie of, you know, VISUAL STORYTELLING. And then there’s the ending, where there’s a development that makes no sense in the context of the rest of the movie. It’s totally unearned. Overall, a big meh for me.