Jadd J.A.D.D. Jadd
A great new horror movie of the ages. Scott Derrickson makes a movie that is smart, touching, intense and scary. Both Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill wrote a screenplay that isn't your conventional or typical horror movie. Joe Hill, the author of the short story, made a fantastic premise and story that's just chilling. When other movies and series set in the seventies or eighties try to capture the nostalgia of that era. This succeeds in spades, it felt liveable and organic with characters that felt real and not clichéd.
Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw as Finn and Gwen are brilliant, again they weren't these one-dimensional and clichéd kids we've seen a billion times. They felt like real kids and you grow to love and endear them because you spent time with them before everything goes down. Jeremy Davies was fantastic as Terrence, he's the abusive and alcoholic father, but there was much more depth to him than what it appears to be on the surface.
Ethan Hawke was freighting and oozing with menace. I love that we don't anything about him and his masks reveal his true nature. Ethan Hawke controls his voice so naturally that he sounds and acts like a predator that's possessed by a demon. E. Roger Mitchell and Troy Rudeseal were both solid and their characters were competent as police officers in a horror movie. Again all the credit goes to Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill for making everything flow so smoothly and consistently.
The thrills and scares are so well done. It builds up so quietly and so subtlety and when it shows up, it will catch you off guard. Scott Derrickson is great at building suspense and paying it off so well.
When it comes to the supernatural it does work. Like using the previous victims to help Finn escape. They feel fleshed out that you do feel for them. The editing helps when it cuts to flashbacks and you see how they left clues behind and we get to know them.
The only trope and cliché that I'm sick of seeing in movies that's around the bullies. They are just so vicious and overly violent. But that's the only problem I had. I cannot recommend this movie enough, go see it on the big screen and be captive by an incredible movie that delivers on everything.
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