Shut-In (2016)

Man, don't you hate it when bad movies happen to good actors?

You see, I'm a big fan of actress Naomi Watts and I believe she's vastly underrated. Whether she's starring in films by some of my favorite directors like David Lynch (Mulholland Dr., Inland Empire) or David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises), some of the most well-regarded horror remakes of the 21st century like The Ring and Funny Games, or films that snag her Oscar noms (21 Grams, The Impossible), I just dig her. This only makes me angrier at the shit storm that is Shut-In than I might normally be as she struggles to bring the rest of it up to her level. Of course, the same could be said for all the actors involved as they try their best to make you care about a film so god damn boring, cliche, and uninteresting.

My favorite Australian who isn't Paul Hogan plays Mary, a child psychologist still reeling and in a state of mental disrepair after the car crash that killed her husband and left her son Stephen (Stranger Things' Charlie Heaton) a vegetable she cares for in her secluded Modern Horror Movie House. When one of her child patients --who's sometimes deaf and sometimes not depending on what suits the story at the particular moment and a startling step down for child actor and star of last year's Room Jason Tremblay-- disappears from her home after somehow showing up there out of the blue one night, her already fragile mental state crumbles even further. The "riveting" "thrills" are interrupted occasionally be Mary speaking to every Hollywood major studio horror films' favorite new character archetype, Specialist on Skype, courtesy of the super cute Oliver Platt.

Here we see Mrs. Watts desperately searching for some intrigue.

I'd planned a writing a longer, more detailed review, but frankly there just isn't much to say. All of these award-winning actors, despite doing the best they can, are absolutely wasted in a film that commits the cardinal sin of being boring. Watching this I was reminded of a film from last February you might remember called The Boy. Both of these films had promise and a twist that could've been so much more if they'd only gone full tilt with them, but instead things are played safe and the result is two completely forgettable films that just sorta leave you feeling cheated.