***WARNING***
This review will contain spoilers!
When Cecilia’s abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.
One of the things I like about this film is the concept that what you can’t see is far scarier that what you can. The first Cloverfield, even with all its faults, did well in that respect.
Cecilia is played by Elisabeth Moss and she does a stellar job of portraying the fear of the unseen. She does ‘is she crazy or is there actually someone there’ well. Especially given that we know there is someone there. There is a couple of tension building scenes very early on – will he wake up as she leaves the house and is he sat on the chair for example – that really work well. The fact that we also don’t know where he is helps with the tension.
Sadly this is also part of where the film falls down. With the action centred entirely around Cecilia we miss out on the actual character building of the villain – Adrian – played well by Oliver Jackson-Cohen. Of course, I say played well but we barely see him, if you’ll pardon the pun. Aside from the mind games he plays, essentially it’s not until towards the end of the film that we’re properly introduced to him.
There’s a couple of times I was annoyed with Cecilia, like why she never requests a death certificate to prove Adrian was dead. If the shit is hitting the fan and you know there’s an invisible man around wouldn’t you ask your police friend, who clearly trusts you (or did until you apparently hit his daughter) to look it up for you? And on the subject of the cop… not one smoke alarm? A frying pan goes up in flames, smoke is everywhere, yet no is alarm sounding. A good cop who seems like a sensible father would have smoke alarms!
At one point Cecilia calls Adrians mobile phone and it’s still active. As a lawyer and executor of his will surely his brother would have had that disconnected? Of course we know why he hasn’t but that wouldn’t make sense to Cecilia.
Adrian allegedly drugs her with diazepam and Cecilia passes out at a job interview. It’s a short while later we hear from the doctor that it was a large amount of the drug in her system that made her pass out. Trust me when I say I speak from experience that if she had enough to make her pass out she wouldn’t have been walking into that interview without seeming drunk and she’d know well before passing out that something was wrong.
All that stuff aside it’s a good tension building movie – the paint scene made me jump – and one definitely worth a watch. And at least it’s a suit and not a drug! I gave it a seven out of ten.
If you want to see more of my ratings click here and head over to the page 1183 Movie Ratings. I’d be interested to know if you agree with my score or not.
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