I'm sorry but I love these children too much to watch Sally Hawkins torture them for so long!
Hard to rate, certainly it's an assured film, creepy in so many different ways but doesn't feel at all patchwork. But I was definitely suffering through the last half hour! Rough, man.
Wolf has a needle to thread here. Showing us Reubens' brilliance is the easy part. There is also the side of him that takes control and alienates people around him. Showing us that side of Reubens first hand does a lot of heavy lifting to help the viewer understand just how hard this was to make. But it also leaves the movie feeling like we don't get quite enough of that negative side from anyone except Wolf. Who's to say…
It looks nice and well made but give it a while and it will disappoint you in basically every way possible.
Over uses jump scares so nothing is scary. Pacing is all off, it only has two speeds. Nothing this family does makes any sense. (Our young child is missing but meh it's fine it'll be okay.) No one ever speaks to anyone else about anything useful. The scary stuff doesn't even hold together thematically.
And then, the end is…
Setting a horror movie of a character's slow descent into monster-hood amongst the hazing rituals of a veterinary college is pretty damn brilliant. And the transformation from Justine's early innocence to where she is by the end of the film is totally earned, no short cuts. It's gory and super fucked up and has a twisted sister relationship at its core and it's the most exciting movie I've seen in a long time.
