102 min | PG-13 | June 7, 2024 | Warner Bros. Pictures
Ishana Night Shyamalan makes her directorial debut with a forest horror film starring Dakota Fanning. The Shyamalan twist gene is hereditary. So is the inconsistency.
Mina is an American artist working in a pet shop in Galway, Ireland. She drives into a vast forest and her car dies. She finds a concrete bunker where three other people have been trapped. Every night, creatures emerge from the woods and watch them through a one-way mirror. The rules are simple. Stand at the glass. Let them watch. Do not go outside after dark. The premise is atmospheric and the Irish forest setting is genuinely eerie. The film establishes tension and then spends its second half dismantling it through exposition.
Dakota Fanning plays Mina with a detachment that reads as either a character choice or disengagement. She is a capable actress and the material does not challenge her. Georgina Campbell plays Ciara with warmth. Oliver Finnegan plays Daniel with anxious energy. Olwen Fouéré plays Madeline, the group’s self-appointed leader, with commanding authority that is the film’s strongest performance. Madeline knows the rules because she has survived the longest. The group dynamics are the most interesting element and the film abandons them for mythology.
Ishana Night Shyamalan directed episodes of Servant for Apple TV and brings a visual sensibility that favors atmosphere over clarity. The forest is shot with genuine menace. The bunker is claustrophobic and lit with harsh fluorescence. The creatures are kept in shadow for most of the film, which is the right choice. When they are revealed, the CGI is unconvincing. The film’s third act delivers a twist that reframes everything and explains too much. The mystery was better than the answer.
The Shyamalan name comes with expectations about twists and the film delivers one that is faithful to the source novel by A.M. Shine. The problem is that the twist deflates the horror rather than amplifying it. The creatures become less frightening once you understand them. This is a debut that shows visual talent and storytelling instincts that need refinement. The atmosphere is there. The discipline is not.