Dever is a solid lead and its nice to see her get the time and space to really flex as she is, in essence, the only real character in the whole movie. She is constrained by one of the movies conceits however which is that there is only 5 words of dialogue. Similar to All Is Lost this doesn't really add anything particularly meaningful to the story, the situations are effective in-and-of-themselves to ratchet up tension, and it in fact detracts as pretty quickly it becomes obvious this is a script decision not a character one, its not believable she wouldn't talk to herself at all, part of why Castaway is good is because Hanks sparse dialogue when he is marooned brings us into his head. The same with this years Inside it is the most human thing in the world to talk to oneself or to at least vocalize in someway. Dever navigates this lay on well but more dialogue or even voice over would serve to more effectively flush out her character and give weight to Brynn's backstory which is kind of clunkily inserted.
The production is excellent writer/director Brian Duffield knows how to put together a well crafted genre flick, it looks good, the locations are spot on, the score is eerie and relentlessly builds, and the alien design is truly spectacular and well thought out. This is another straight-to-streaming feature that should have been released in theaters especially with Halloween fast approaching, its a mid-budget solid piece of work that has the potential to have really caught on and would have easily made decent box office regardless, get your heads outta your asses studio heads!
A relatively minimal, forceful, propulsive genre flick perfect for the spooky season, if somewhat muddled in its human element.
Currently streaming on Hulu.
Rent It.
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