After watching an animated movie earlier, our second film of the day was this new psychological thriller that intrigued me, especially when I saw the name James McAvoy. I only read the brief premise once and never saw its trailer, so I did not really know what to expect. Well without further ado, here's more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy -  Luckiest Girl Alive, Aftermath etc) together with his wife Louise (MacKenzie Davis - Terminator: Dark Fate, Station Eleven mini series etc) and their young daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler) were having a vacation in Italy where they met with a British family of Paddy (James McAvoy - My Son, Atomic Blonde etc), Ciara (Aisling Franciosi - The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Legends TV series etc) and their son Ant (Dan Hough) and became quite close.

When the Daltons were invited by Paddy to spend the weekend in his home, they decided to go ahead. However what should have been a pleasant trip would grow into uneasiness and scary, especially with the dark secret kept by Paddy. 

So what was actually the secret and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Just like the usual psychological thriller, this movie was having a slow start with introduction of the two families and how they became vacation friends. It took quite a while before the trip to Paddy's home and even then the story moved in a standard pace, slowly building up on the intensity arising from the British family behavior that was making the Daltons uneasy. Although I am accustomed to watching slow burn psychological thriller film, I still wished the story would move a little bit faster. Which was why I was more excited when the suspenseful part started after more than half of the movie. 

There was nothing truly shocking in here as we could have guessed the thing that I believed was supposed to surprise us. What was amazing though was the performance of James McAvoy who showed once again that he was suitable in playing such roles. The way he did psychological "terror" on the Daltons or the convincing expressions when he was angry or trying to do the unfunny teasing were quite brilliant. Other cast were pretty decent as well, particularly Mackenzie Davis whose character I thought was well-written. Btw, the movie was actually a remake of 2022 Danish film with same title, directed by Christian Tafdrup. The American version was written and directed by James Watkins who had experience in directing horror movies like Eden Lake and The Woman in Black. I think he was able to utilize the jump scare scenes effectively, but I did feel the musical score that would have added the element of horror was not fully optimized. 

The movie had a duration of 110 minutes which was more than sufficient to cover the whole story. Although if the build up was lessen a bit, it could have been shorter and probably more satisfying for me. I read that critics were impressed by this and it's looking to perform quite OK in term of box office. So Jason Blum (the prolific producer who is also founder of Blumhouse that produce multiple horror hits), had done it again. Oh there was no mid or post end credit scene In here in case you are wondering. However, there was a famous 1989 song by the Bangles titled Eternal Flame playing in the background during closing credits and also in one of the scenes from the movie.

Overall this was a psychological thriller that felt more like drama as it took its time to get to the interesting part. It had a dark story and pretty great acting by the cast in general. My wife and I were satisfied with the conclusion of the film, but frankly after reading the full plot of the original version, we felt that one had a more powerful and memorable ending. I am not saying that this one had a poor ending cause we were still satisfied by it (even my wife also clapped her hands on one of the extreme violent scene). So if you are OK with slow burn psychological drama thriller with a strong conclusion, then I think you would enjoy the movie. But if you are less patient, you might feel the wait to be a little bit too long despite its satisfying conclusion.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars