The Twin

Flicking through the reviews of other people which are predominantly unfavorable by the way; I do wonder, what were they thinking? I mean, what were they expecting to see? While I understand the amount of frustration they might feel, their all-around cynical outlook, and their perspective in general; yet, I still believe, they had gone a little bit overboard with the criticisms this time.

Yes, the story is convoluted, perhaps, a little bit pretentious too; but the core notion still managed to deliver a compelling narrative (with a significant technical mastership) nonetheless. Now, I saw a lot of people complaining about the nature of the twists (or rather about how too many were there); speaking for myself though, I dug those, they kept me second-guessing up until the very end. And then came the final twist (not gonna spoil it, do not worry); caught me off-guard, I wasn't quite ready for it.

The Twin has a handful of corny horror tropes: child loss, new home in the middle of nowhere, pregnancy exploitation, hallucinations, gaslighting, quasi-satanic rituals, folk atmosphere (or, at least, an attempt to create it), et cetera. Too many ingredients for one film, and eventually it's hard even to qualify the results. Is this a psychological drama wrapped in horror? Is this a horror wrapped in psychological drama? Is this a Finnish Midsommar? We wish we knew. Not even Lights Out's Teresa Palmer and the whole exotic setting ("wow, those Finns are so eerie but their nature is so beautiful") can make this ponderous mess work.

This film will feel very familiar due to an overused theme (grief). If you can somehow get around that...you may enjoy this. Beautifully filmed (CGI cemetery was weird though) and the acting was solid all around. Atmospheric, but not particularly frightening. Not a fast moving film, but no noticeable filler. I can't think of a reason not to recommend this. Might pair nicely with Wake Wood (2009) for a double feature and exercise in contrast and comparison.

Ok so, I don't think this was nearly as unsuccessful as a whole as a lot of the reviews are claiming... however their reasoning is accurate.

This is an amalgamation of many horror movies you have already seen, so nothing original. It was a little too long and was almost on the verge of being too slow but I personally was entertained and it kept my attention enough.

I found the mother character irritating but damn did that actress do a good job. People get those two confused a lot. The character annoyed me but that actress killed it, there's a difference lol great job. All other performances were fine.

I was confused by the poor reviews until about the third act when I felt that it went down hill. It started to feel repetitive and labored. I started to feel particularly displeased when the exposition was in the form of a spoon fed monologue/ montage. I mean, how lame right? Lol

Although this was nothing particularly original and slightly derivative I think that it was still moderately successful in its own right. While I was displeased with some major things, I was still pretty entertained for the majority. I was thinking 6 or maybe even 7 depending on the ending until the last chunk and knocked it down to a 5.5 but I'll give it a 6 for the leads performance. I would casually recommend, if you don't have something else in cue lol.

"The Twin" is a movie that has a couple of great qualities: the cinematography and its setting. Fully exploited the rural locations of Finland and a house perfectly lit by the crew to make it look gloomy. The performances of the leads are decent, but the performance of Barbara Marten stands out. The big problem with the movie is its script that tries to emulate current horror movies that revolve around psychological thriller and drama embedded in an art film and fails in its entirety. In addition, there are obvious influences from classics like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" but without being able to approach their quality. "The Twin" fails as a psychological horror film and offers nothing but excellent visuals.