Director: Farren Blackburn
Writer: Christina Hodson (Screenplay)
Starring: Naomi Watts, Oliver Platt, Charlie Heaton, Jacob Tremblay, Crystal Balint, Alex Braunstein, David Cubitt
Plot: A heart-pounding thriller about a widowed child psychologist who lives in an isolated existence in rural New England. Caught in a deadly winter storm, she must find a way to rescue a young boy before he disappears forever.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Slow Thriller
Story: Shut In starts as we see Mary (Watts) split from her husband having to send her son Stephen (Heaton) away for school after he got expelled from their local one. During the trip son and father end up in an argument leading to a tragic car accident killing the husband and leaving Stephen paralyzed.
Mary works as a child psychologist and her main patient is Tom (Tremblay) and he is going to getting transferred to another city. Mary struggling with her grief of losing her husband and having to take care of the shell that was once her son is stuck trying to make the difficult decision about his future.
Her quite time is ruined when Tom returns during a storm only to go on the run with the whole town searching for him. Mary must turn to a fellow professional Dr Wilson (Platt) for advice with the strange goings on within the house, but the reality will be the twist she will never see coming.
Shut In is a horror thriller that starts off being pretty routine before taking a twist about what is really going on, this twist saves the film because it wasn’t going in a very interesting direction until this revealed. Everything plays on the mind about what could be done in the same situation but in the end, doesn’t give you too many options on where the film could go.
Watts is solid but you are questioning her choice to be in this role as such an established actress, while Jacob Tremblay is horrible underused in the film for such a young talent. Oliver Platt is also wasted in his role but Charlie Heaton is the star of the film once we get to the final act. In the end this is a standard horror thriller that never reaches the real heights of it’s potential.
Overall: This thriller tries to deliver a knock out but in the end finishes with a whimper.
Rating
