Don't Move

Don't Move falls into a sub-genre of horror that has some of the most rigid tropes and uncompromising borders: the wilderness survival horror movie. A cat-and-mouse game between a crazed killer and a would-be-victim, deep in the woods somewhere. Other than the dynamics between the predator and prey, there's usually very little that these movies can do that changes up the dynamic. The meet-up, the capture, a failed escape that leads to them in the woods, meet up with a stranger who offers help but dies in the process, re-capture, a couple glimmers of hope, final confrontation, killer makes a dumb mistake, protagonist survives. I've described almost every one of these movies. Don't Move would seem to add something new to the equation, with the killer dosing the victim with a fast-acting paralytic drug. This would seem, on paper, to provide the movie with a ticking clock element that could ratchet up the tension in a new way. Unfortunately, Don't Move decides to burn that ticking clock element before the first act is over and skip straight to the heroine, Iris, being paralyzed. This puts the movie in a whole new and somewhat clumsy paradigm; Iris can't move or speak, so all the tropes have to happen around her. Iris being a total non-participant in the story means the plot has to bend around her the way light bends around a black hole, contorting to accommodate her inability to affect it in any way. It is the most literal embodiment of a character being denied agency in a story. Watching Don't Move means approaching every new scene, waiting for a deus ex machina to come along and introduce itself to propel the story forward. It doesn't help that Don't Move is pathologically incapable of veering from the pattern in any way. This thing hits the beats as reliably as a drum machine, and with as much enthusiasm as that same drum machine on a dying battery. Does that mean Don't Move is bad? No, it's fine enough for what it is. I wasn't bored at all, and there's a nice character arc for Iris over the course of the movie. But given that it is doggedly determined to follow the pattern while also squandering the possibility of its set-up, it does little to nothing to set itself apart from its brethren. Movies like Significant Other or What Keeps You Alive have at least either strong performances, distinct twists, or a little of both to get their heads above water in this cliché-ridden genre. Outside of turning its lead actress into furniture for 75% of its length, Don't Move offers nothing you haven't seen before.