Never let go

7/10

I walked into this movie expecting some type of horror but instead I got a psychological movie. There were so many small things that made me question everything. At one point I started thinking maybe the mom is making it all up and being over protective.

The rope signifies her over protectiveness of her children. How being over protective can sometimes hinder a child. It’s like a mother bird clipping her children wings so they can only depend on her and only look to her. They are unable to think for themselves and always have to ask what does mama think.

But then the aspect of trauma or whatever it is that’s messing with the moms head start to get to the boys. Noah hearing things and then Samuel started to feel something strange.

There was a scene where Samuel had picked up some snake skin and the motif of a snake seemed frequent in the story so the ending was very cool and unexpected.

Being that the mom had been so overprotective one child started to try to think for himself and began to doubt her. He did make some questionable choices that led to certain events. This always happens when a child chooses to rebel whether it’s for good or leads to bad.

When the man showed up the question of whether he was real or not really made sit at the edge of my seat.

Then Samuel going outside with the light thinking he heard something. When he was at the shed a little girl that looked exactly like the daughter of the man that he killed shows up. She asks him strange questions like about his rope. You wonder if she is real and when he chances after her. She does something odd. She goes in a circle leading to his rope being caught by the trees. Now he had a choice he could go back or untie the rope to go find the girl since he thinks she is real. What do you think happens after Noah raised many questions of doubt ?

At the end Samuel says something that Noah thought he had heard earlier. They both are free from the house but will they recover from everything and does the mother still have her hold on them?

When Noah kept questioning things about the world and the family I think it was because he noticed something won’t right and when he hugged the spirited of his mother that was possessed by the darkness it was him accepting their flaws and embracing instead of fearing it. Understanding it’s there but unable to control him.

A theme of isolation, family traditions that can seem more abusive than beneficial

I liked the camera work but I would’ve loved more minor effects to show the difference between each characters perspective like since mom could see the evil I would’ve liked a more subtle effect that differentiates between the kids pov and things of that nature