Shut In

WRITER'S NOTE: The following review contains major spoilers near the end.  I usually resist doing so, but this time I just could not. 

For its first two Acts, Shut In is a fairly subpar and meandering psychological thriller about things going bump in the night.  Then in Act Three, we learn that it was all a ruse, and the movie really wants to be a trashy psycho thriller.  You know, the kind of movie where the helpless victims hide in a closet, while the mad killer lurks just outside, scraping his weapon against the walls of the house, and singing a children's lullaby in a slow and ominous manner.  Even if I wasn't completely enthralled by the first hour, at least I didn't hate the movie.  But boy, did I hate the last half.

The movie stars Naomi Watts, an incredibly talented actress, who should have known better than to get involved.  She's clearly doing what she can with her performance, but the script by first-time screenwriter Christina Hodson does her no favors., nor does it give her any memorable scenes or moments of dialogue.  The movie also stars the very talented child actor, Jacob Tremblay, from Room.  Even at the age of 10, he too should have known better than to get involved.  At least he gets to disappear for a majority of the film, unlike Watts, who is forced to carry this movie almost entirely by herself.  It's a task she's more than capable of, but again, this movie feels beneath her talents.  Is this really the best project she could find - One that requires her to do almost nothing but react to noises on the soundtrack?  She may not be phoning it in, but you kind of have to wonder, why the effort?

She plays Mary Portman, a child therapist who lives alone with her teenage stepson Stephen (Charlie Heaton from the Netflix series, Stranger Things), who has been in a nearly comatose state and confined to a wheelchair ever since he got in a car accident with his father.  The father died in the crash, and Mary must now see to her son's every need, which is obviously taking an emotional toll on her.  Mary lives alone in a beautiful and isolated New England home, surrounded by a forest and a lake.  Since this is a thriller, we know that lake will either have a body floating in it at some point, or perhaps be haunted by a ghost, as those seem to be the only purposes a lake serves in a thriller.  Her main contact with the outside world is the therapist Dr. Wilson (Oliver Platt), who helps her with her grief over on line video chats, and the young patients that she treats at her own practice, which is connected to her home.

One of those patients is Tom (Tremblay), a deaf boy whom Mary seems to have some kind of connection with, though the movie never bothers to explore their relationship.  Tom is going to be sent away to another therapist in Boston, but apparently he feels the same way about her, as he breaks into her house later that night, wanting to come live with her.  Mary gets on the phone to try to get some help for Tom, but while her back is turned, the boy is suddenly gone, with the front door hanging ominously open.  The weather is freezing cold, and there's talk of an approaching snow storm on the TV, so Mary isn't sure if the kid can survive the conditions out there.  There's no sign of the boy, and as time passes, Mary becomes more concerned.  That's when she starts to hear the sound of someone or something moving around inside her house and even in the walls late at night. 

Obviously, the only other person in the house with her is the comatose Stephen, so there shouldn't be anyone walking around.  Dr. Wilson tries to convince Mary that what she's experiencing is a form of night terrors caused by difficulty sleeping, but she's not so sure.  During one night, she actually thinks she sees Tom standing by the edge of her bed.  Shut In kind of moseys along, repeating the same scenes of Mary hearing the strange noises night after night, until it finally comes to its Third Act reveal.  Now, as a critic, I personally don't believe in spoiling the plot of a movie.  But this time, I just can't help myself.  I need to share this one with you, dear reader.  If you don't want to know what happens, or you plan to see this movie (which I don't recommend), then please stop reading right now.  The next couple paragraphs will contain some major spoilers, so proceed with caution.

Still here?  Okay, too late to turn back now.  In the last half hour of the movie, it is revealed that her stepson Stephen has actually been awake and moving around in the middle of the night all this time.  Not only that, but he kidnapped little Tom, and has been trying to keep him captive in the basement.  However, the kid managed to escape through a crawlspace in the house, and has been moving around in the walls of the house, trying to avoid his captor.  Why did Stephen take the boy prisoner?  Apparently, he got upset that the kid came to his stepmother for comfort, and fearing that Mary would replace him with Tom, he tied the kid up and planned to kill him.  Turns out Stephen is the biggest psychotic Mama's Boy since Norman Bates, and wants to kill anyone who gets close to Mary, or threatens to tear them apart.  He even was responsible for killing his father, because he was taking Stephen away to a school for troubled youth.

So, why the comatose act?  I honestly can't figure it out, myself.  And why go through so much trouble?  Does he just like the idea of Mary waiting on him hand and foot, and doing everything for him?  The movie never bothers to get inside his head, because it's too busy making him out to be your standard psycho killer who lurks in the shadows, bludgeoning anyone who dares get close.  Even if Shut In wasn't exactly a great thriller up to this point, this last half feels like a total cop out.  I was shocked.  Sure, I had my suspicions that somehow the kid in the wheelchair was going to end up being responsible, but I honestly held out hope that the movie wouldn't go in that direction.  But go there it does, and the last half hour is a trashy conclusion to a movie that wasn't really working, but still deserved a more classy send off than this.

There's no other way to say it - Shut In is a mess.  It's never very successful at building suspense, and when the truth is revealed, I was more repulsed than thrilled.  Sometimes you ask yourself what drew a certain actor to a project.  Sometimes you're better off just not knowing.

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