The Twin

After the death of his son, a grieving father tries to come to terms with the outcome of the situation by himself against the wishes of those around him, only for the experience to be even further complicated by his insistence that a demonic spirit is targeting him for his actions.

This was a pretty frustrating and difficult effort to get into. The main feature to enjoy with this one is the massively intriguing setup that provides this one with the kind of exploration of grief that manages to work its way through the storyline. With the whole experience discussing the effects of his mental state deteriorating in front of others, starting from the opening encounter with his grandmother to the fateful incident with his son that sets everything in motion, there's a fine detail of his turning point into being wholly able to be tempted by the demonic entity. Seeing the different incidents bring everything within him to a head as he undergoes the series of changes that the demon starts to feed on, including personality disorders, hallucinatory visions, whispered taunts threatening his mental sanity, and other outbursts that those around him start to interpret as slipping mental deficiencies rather than demonic possession. When it starts to get more involved and serious that he has something wrong with him, there's a lot to like here, featuring the effects of the demon's influence slowly turning into a darker encounter. Starting with the generic haunted house whispers and reliving of the moment that everything happened, the move into more overt and dangerous, with it manifesting itself as a genuine physical threat, there's a lot of fun to be had with the encounters here, showing what's potentially haunting him with these encounters around the house, trying to pile on his grief during the process. This leads rather well into the big finale where the full-bore possession has turned into a manifestation of a physical entity that manages to interact rather nicely with the family there trying to help him so that it gets the fun notion of bringing several different formats together involving both the tormenting physical presence and the psychological warfare going on, which is what makes this one fun enough. There are some issues here holding this one down. The main drawback with the film is a generally bland build-up involving the psychological build-up of the mental deterioration, which ends up making everything far more dramatic than expected. With a majority of the film taking the slow-burn build-up of what's going on and exploring his grief to the point of forsaking anything else, it causes the first half to feel far too dragged out without much to show for it. The idea isn't the problem since it effectively gives him the groundwork necessary for the finale to mean what it does, but there's just not enough action to counteract the continuous need for grief and loss that so many other efforts have also employed. The other factor against this one is the rather disappointing finale that runs on too long for the type of content it's aiming for, with little reason for it to be that way, making this one come off weaker than it should despite the emotional catharsis implied, all of which hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, and themes of violence-against-children.

The Twin is a slow-burn psychological horror that rewards patient viewers with a haunting and emotionally charged story. From the very beginning, the film pulls you into a chilling atmosphere of grief, mystery, and dread. Logan Donovan delivers a standout performance, carrying the weight of a Father torn with love, loss, and fear. The film shines in its atmosphere-beautifully shot scenes with eerie, isolated settings create an unsettling backdrop that feels both breathtaking and claustrophobic. The tension is not built on cheap jump scares but on an ever-growing sense of unease, cleverly blurring the line between reality and delusion. Can't wait to see more from this film crew!

Started off decently enough, if a bit cliche. There are times that you will have to suspend your disbelief, namely when the wife decides it's a good idea to leave her husband alone in the house he grew up in, where he experienced an extremely frightening event as a young boy, on the day he gets released from a psych ward after the death of his son. It makes no sense, but whatever. The first 40 minutes were pretty good. It's a slow burner, but it kept my interest, and I found it to be a bit creepy and atmospheric. The problem begins right around halfway through the movie. It becomes every cliche that you can possibly name having to do with a ghost/possession movie. The dialogue and acting (mainly from the psychiatrist, who seems to be a decent actor) become very cheesy, and anyone who's seen a couple movies in this genre will be able to predict scene for scene what happens next. Could have maybe been a 6 or 7/10, but it fell off fast.

It would almost be average except for the ham fisted attempts at character development and acting. There were many times where I was pulled out of the story because of ridiculous scenarios portrayed.

Eg, *knocking at the front door* main charcters reaction is a very confused "who is knocking?!" Like my god, who could fathom that someone might be knocking on a door in a suburban neighborhood lol. Scenes where the main character is supposedly painting but they left the minor detail of no paint being applied to the canvas. Main character's wife pulls the brilliant move of leaving her husband the day he's let out of a mental institution and then is confused why he's upset about it. All this and more show a complete lack of understanding and writing legitimate character development and actions.

On the plus, there are a few creepy moments but nothing new or worthy of any awards. If the unintentional laughable moments weren't a part of this movie I'd probably rate it a 5 instead of a 2.

Given my love of all things horror, of course I needed no persuasion to watch "The Twin". Sure, I had never even heard about the movie, but that didn't shy me away from giving the movie a fair chance.

Writers Paul Petersen and J. C. Doler put together a script that struggled with its pacing, and that ultimately made for a somewhat prolonged and very uneventful narrative. You have to sit for a long time in between anything even remotely interesting happening. I can't claim that I was particularly impressed with the storyline in the movie.

In all honestly, then I gave up halfway through, I just couldn't take any more of the mind-numbing pointlessness that served as a script here.

Now, "The Twin" is labeled as a horror movie, but it is in fact a psychological drama about a father's downward spiral after the loss of his son.

I was actually not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, which was actually something that spoke in overall favor of the movie, as I do enjoy watching new and unfamiliar talents on the screen. The acting performances in the movie were fair, but nothing noteworthy or outstanding.

This movie just simply isn't worth the effort. And having to sit through 103 minutes of this torture was just simply beyond my scope of comprehension.

My rating of director J. C. Doler's 2024 movie "The Twin" lands on a two out of ten stars.