What Keeps You Alive

Ooh, this was so close to getting 5. It’s a simple premise: Jules and Jackie go up to a cabin to celebrate their 1 year anniversary. When an old friend of Jackie’s comes around to say hi, she calls Jackie Megan. That introduces a seed of distrust between the two, which ends up blossoming into all-out chaos, pitting the two against each other in a cat and mouse game of survival. There’s a LOT to like about this thriller. The acting is great: Hannah Emily Anderson is chilling as Jackie/Megan, a cold, calculating monster in the shape of a human being. I’ve seen some criticism of her character as being without motivation. I don’t agree. Michael Myers has no motivation, and Halloween is considered a masterpiece. Jackie’s lack of motivation is what makes her captivating; you can try to overlay possible reasons, psychological trauma, whatever, and maybe some of them make sense, and maybe none of them do. She just has no regard or value for human life. It makes her terrifying. On the other side is Brittany Allen, who does a fantastic job balancing the desperation, confusion, and conflicting emotions of someone who discovers their spouse is a lunatic. She also scored the movie, and the score is just right. The remote setting and minimal cast also work to the movie’s advantage, as the forest feels both vast and claustrophobic, while the cabin feels both rustic and dangerous. What keeps it from getting 5 stars are two things. The first is a somewhat muddled pace in the middle portion of the movie. From the dinner scene onto the final confrontation, the suspense flags a bit, and the movie sorta doesn’t know how to keep up the pace all the time. I suppose that’s to let the audience catch their breath, and because it can’t be all predator/prey, but there’s some scenes that just feel dragged out. And then there’s the ending. The final confrontation between the two is, bafflingly, off-screen. I have no idea why, and it feels so out of place. It feels like the movie has reached a natural conclusion, but it hasn’t. I won’t spoil what happens next, but it feels tacked on. There is some poetry in the final moments, but it doesn’t stop the ending from feeling trope heavy. And the very last shot will made me go “oh come ON”. I still had a great time with this movie, though. The performances, the camera work, the direction, it comes together in a mostly great package that is well worth a watch, even if it doesn’t wrap up entirely satisfactorily.