A Creature Was Stirring

I had fun watching this one. All of the performances were decent. The first 90% of the movie was straight up campy holiday horror fun. Trapped in a blizzard with a porcupine creature. We've all been there. I actually didn't see the twist coming until well into the second half. That being said, this is partly because the story telling didn't really put in the work. The flood of flashbacks right at the end seemed a bit lazy. I didn't think the ending was terrible but also think the movie would have been much better without it. Turn it off at the breakfast scene and the movie is a 7. Side note, does Connor Paolo not age?

The majority of this movie is surprisingly decent for a low budget, one-location film. Aesthetically the house looks pretty good (aside from some weird lighting choices), the actors all perform adequately, and the entire thing slowly builds up into a seemingly layered and interesting mystery.

While not terribly exciting, I enjoyed the slow progression as the scope of the mystery expanded and we see the characters do stranger and more intense things. I felt like they did a good job making every character seem shady to where a variety of major twist(s) could be plausible and applicable to any (or all) of them, and I was genuinely curious to find out how everything was interconnected.

The creature aspect of the movie is done well considering the film's limitations. You do actually see it from time to time and there are some genuinely creepy practical effects used for it. There is some cheesy stuff too (both in terms of effects and scene where the creature is present), but it doesn't ruin it. Honestly, I wish they had just done a straight creature-feature with the creature being a central character/villain instead of the whole "mystery" aspect where you don't know if the creature is real or not, and I would've liked them to cut out some of the various other things going which reduce the focus on the creature and give ol' spiny some more screen time.

All the serious problems with the film come from the ending. The entire thing is very obviously building to a major reveal which should explain all the weirdness that the audience has been witnessing. Unfortunately, the ending fails COMPLETELY.

It feels like they were writing the story as they went and didn't have an ending in mind but thought "eh, we'll figure it out when we get there". Then the time came and they still didn't have anything that could adequately explain things, so they instead opted for something easy and generic which fails to actually line up with anything that was introduced in the movie.

The ending is cliché and a total cop-out. If you like to try to predict twists than you will absolutely have thought of this but likely dismissed it due to how dumb and nonsensical it would be.

The problem is that the ENTIRE movie hinges on the cleverness of the reveal, and the lame reveal actually ruins, or at least makes insignificant, everything else that happened in the movie. When you go back to the scenarios that played out and take the reveal into account everything actually makes LESS sense and gives the impression it was all a bunch of arbitrary stuff that the writer thought looked or sounded good at the time but doesn't actually tie in or interconnect. Instead of tying things up or providing an explanation, it just introduces a bunch of questions and plot holes.

It's a shame about the ending; this was a solid 5-6 for most of its duration, but, as I stated, the ending makes literally every other aspect of the movie worse, so it's impossible to give it a good overall rating. Worth a watch if you've run out of other horror, but don't have any great expectations.

Plot

A nurse taking care of her daughter's mysterious affliction struggles to hide her secrets when uninvited strangers take shelter in her house during a lethal blizzard.

Cast

Created by a first time writer and starring the always excellent Annalise Basso and Chrissy Metz! I was excited to see these two and what they'd bring to the table here.

Verdict

I'll be honest when I looked at the cast list I was quite surprised to see Annalise Basso, she's an actress I always thought was on the rise and yet this suggests perhaps I was mistaken and she's rather gone the route of AnnaSophia Robb.

A Creature Was Stirring immediately hits you with fantastic style, a claustrophobic feel, great tension and solid performances. It then adds two additional characters who despite being bland are unable to bring the quality down, then it gradually all begins to go terribly wrong.

It delves into the usual tropes and cliches, some writing decisions become rather head scratching, the religious rhetoric becomes tiresome and then it hits you with a frantic finale with another trope and one that I'm so very very very very stupidly sick of. It's seems like an "Out" for writers when they don't have any ideas how to end the thing and it has the habit of outright killing the entire film.

Had they come up with a better finale this could have actually been an unexpectedly great film, alas it didn't.

Rants

If you don't have the budget to create a monster, don't do a monster movie. It's that simple! I'm all for the logic of keeping it in the shadows to save money but even that needs to be done correctly, look at Alien and Aliens for example! Here they do a combination of keeping it in the shadows in a poor manner and trying to present it but making it looking decidedly awful in the process. If you don't have the money to pull something off, don't try.

The Good

Annalise Basso and Chrissy Metz Brilliant style Some decent ideas

The Bad

Scout Taylor-Compton and Connor Paolo were mediocre Falls apart the further in it goes Poor finale.

So, trying to be spoiler free, the movie is just strange. The acting leaves a lot to be desired. The lighting reminds me of the George Clooney Batman. Some of the effects are fun, as I really do like practical effects over CGI. There are just too many holes in the end. There's an attempt to wrap it all up, but it just can't make up for all the questions. Some of the questions were happening as I watched. Others came at the end. I'm not trying to blast the movie, as it does have a fun quality, but it certainly isn't one I'll be watching again. Also, I feel compelled to do a review, because with the rating currently an 8/10 at the time of me writing, I think I'm trying to set some realistic expectations for future watchers.

Not a comedy buy you could not tell by watching. If you have at least 4 beers in you then it is somewhat enjoyable.

Gets a 4 because the 2 lead actresses are very good and did a superb job with a trash script. Annalise Basso is also very hot and good eye candy. So a 4.

The story is piecemeal and the script varies from ok to laughable. Some lines make sense, some do not. I do give them .25 point for an original creature, not seen in any other horror movie.

However, it is ruined by the cgi. It is sub par. Like paper mache subpar. They had zero cgi talent.

There is a plot twist that they get kudos for, and gives the movie a tiny ammount of validty.