Plot
Eight year old Peter lives with his parents Carol and Mark in their very old two story home. Carol and Mark are distant to his needs, as he is bullied at school and they barely notice.
Instead they impart strict rules on him, such as forbidding him to go trick or treating for the upcoming Halloween, making him dig up the garden for having nightmares – and yelling at him for the paintings he draws at school.
Lately he has been hearing voices in the walls in his bedroom. The voice belongs to a young girl, who reveals that she is his sister, and their parents are not what they seem.
Thankfully Peter has a new teacher at school, Miss Devine – who listens to Peter, and might be the one person who wants to help him.
Direction
Directed by Samuel Bodin (in his debut), he does a remarkable job. He is able to use the camera in such a unique way, it turns at time in 90 or 180 degree angles that really accentuates some scenes.
There is terrific use of lighting, especially within the old house and there is great use of shadows. A few key moments are when Peter is on the stairs – and the camera is on him – the shadow outline of his parents are illuminated on the wall behind him. Another is when he witnesses his mother through the door into the kitchen and we see her shadow with a large knife – but she is just carving pumpkins…
I liked that we didn’t see the monster till the end of the film… but I will shed more light on my thoughts on said monster in my breakdown of the film.
Some of the other technical aspects of the film are well done as well, especially that of the sound department, who made great use of the sound of the old house (as well as the knocking of the monster on the wall in Peters room).
Executive Producers were Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg.
Cast
Woody Norman plays Peter – and once again a child actor just knocks it out the park in their performance. You can really gauge his terror at the world around him… not just the monster in his wall, but his cruel parents too.
Lizzy Caplan plays Carol – Peter’s mother. She gives a powerhouse performance as the manipulative woman who can turn on her heel with her personality. Considering she is traditionally known for her comedic prowess, she absolutely shines in the horror/dramatic elements too.
Antony Starr plays Mark, who even Al Bundy could best at fatherhood. He is great at this villainous performance… I wonder if he’s done anything else like this… (jokes…)
Cleopatra Coleman plays Miss Devine, who becomes Peter’s guardian angel of sorts and the only one within the film who truly listens to him. As much as I liked the character, it felt underwritten – and despite the final arc where she comes to save him – I was somewhat underwhelmed.
Not a human cast member, but the house itself should be mentioned. From the production design to the set design etc – the house itself becomes a ‘character’ of the film. Those who worked on any of this should be proud of their final product!!!
Breakdown
The film starts relatively normally. We are introduced to the family unit of mum Carol, dad Mark and son Peter.
Peter is being bullied at school, which is seemingly ignored by his parents. He gets a new teacher at school, the young Miss Devine – who immediately clocks Peter as needing slightly more attention. This leads to her going ‘above and beyond’ at times – more so than is either required, or allowed by her superiors allow. I found this to be similar to the character of Justine Gandy from Weapons and how she clocked onto one of her students (and was correct in her assumption!!).
Peter and his family live in an old two story house – which is almost a character of the movie itself. From the look and feel of it, you can almost feel the coldness, and how clinical it would be for Peter to live there with how Carol keeps it. Peter begins hearing ‘knocking’ sound at night – which his parents dismiss, and even when he starts having nightmares and reaching out via drawings – instead of nurturing his pain they tell him to stop. Even to the point of saying “no nightmares” tonight (like you can help that???). Soon a voice begins talking to him from within the walls, and soon Peter discovers that the voice belongs to his sister and she was locked in the wall – and is continued to be fed by their parents!!!
As the weeks go by, and Halloween looms closer – the relationships between Peter/his sister/their parents/Miss Devine are all connected as events occur (such as Peter being expelled for fighting back against the bully – at the advice of sister), this causes Peter to be not just grounded – but sent to the dank basement. There is a terrific scene where Miss Devine, once again breaking the rules by bringing Peter’s final math test before he was expelled to him – and Carol berates Miss Devine over her ‘love’ of Peter… this is the best piece of acting I have seen from Caplan – and she is simply terrifying during it.
There is some great use of foreshadowing in the film as well, where an early scene in the film (where Mark is being ‘somewhat’ nice to his son) and they are trying to kill the rats within the walls (as Mark says it is) – by using rat poison. The sweet smell of cinnamon comes through in a lovely dinner scene at the end of the second act…
This leads to a somewhat disappointing third act, in which Peter releases his sister from her prison – which reveals her to be a monster that is supernatural. This took away from the realism of the rest of the film – and while Peter is doing this – his bully (who Peter pushed down stairs causing a broken leg) comes with some older friends for payback – and while they are tearing apart Peter’s family house – the monster tears through them… this felt like it was done to add extra cannon fodder to the film.
The final showdown is also a slightly let down, where the monster seems unfinished with Peter, and the film just…ends.
Overall
I really enjoyed this, and found it to be a solid horror film. The performances by almost all are top tier epecially Caplan and Norman as Carol and Peter.
The final act, in which the creature is revealed could have been done better, but all in all this was a great watch.
You can check out my Podcast where I discuss this film further.
4/5
Please check out the YouTube channel I have with my mate Ant, where we discuss this one (and more!) Please subscribe if you haven’t yet!
Ryan's Movie Reviews 