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THE WRETCHED
Directors: Brett Pierce and Drew T. Pierce Cast: John-Paul Howard, Jamison Jones, Piper Curda, Zarah Mahler, Azie Tesfai, Kevin Bigley, Blane Crockarell MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:35 Release Date: 5/1/20 (limited; digital & on-demand) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 30, 2020 The Wretched never finds a convincing through line beyond its basic plot, and the plot is a fundamentally basic one, at that. A teenage boy comes to suspect that his neighbor is a witch, so he investigates, while writers/directors Brett and Drew T. Pierce (credited as "the Pierce Brothers") go out of their way to confirm the kid's suspicions for us. It's set up, then, as a kind of paranoid thriller, in which Ben (John-Paul Howard), the aforementioned teenage boy, witnesses strange happenings, tries figure out the truth behind them, and is met with disbelief from anyone in whom he confides. The story doesn't work on that level, though, because we know the kid is right from the start—thanks to a prologue set 30 years in the past, showing a babysitter discovering a rather gruesome scene in the basement of the house where she's supposed to watching a kid. There's no sense of mystery here, and that ruins almost any possibility of tension within this pretty formulaic setup. Ben is staying with his father Liam (Jamison Jones), who's separated from the kid's mother, for the summer, and while working at the nearby pier and becoming friendly with Mallory (Piper Curda), the teen notices that Abbie (Zarah Mahler), his neighbor with a husband (played by Kevin Bigley) and two kids (including a newborn baby), is behaving strangely. The baby disappears, and soon, the other son does, too. We see everything that Ben doesn't, which means that the fraternal filmmakers create plenty of opportunities for jump scares, makeup effects (The attractive neighbor transforms into a wrinkly, crinkly version of herself—or so we imagine until we see a monstrous witch claw out of another woman's chest cavity), and other fairly obvious attempts at fright. Lost, amidst all of the creepy things and horrific suggestions happening next door, is any kind of navigating purpose to Ben's story, beyond the fact that he's an angst-ridden, hormonal teenager who doesn't like that his dad is dating the perfectly—almost too much so—nice Sara (Azie Tesfai). There's a significant and pretty daring twist in the third act, revealing that we've watching events unfold from an unreliable perspective. This transparent attempt to raise the stakes at the last moment doesn't work, though, because, like so much of The Wretched, it's showy but hollow. Copyright © 2020 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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