Locked In

I had my hopes up when I saw this film was on the number one spot at my coutrys Netflix chart this week. I really like Famke Jansen, but why did she have to be apart of this production? With her charisma there should be better roles for her. She is too talented for this type of conveyer belt productions. The film in itself looks good, but it feels more like a long music video. The idea for the story is great, but it doesn't unfortunately take off. Boring and predictable story. Even the genre of Locked In should mystery, by it is impossible to find that. Maybe the mystery is why was this even done in first place.

Locked In is generically a modern Gothic story. British, manor, orphans, illness, love affairs, duplicitous characters, plots within plots, etc. All of that, the movie does well.

Do we need another Gothic mystery of orphaned child becoming entwined with a decaying family and its manor? Probably not. Do the actors move past the 2 dimensional nature of their characters? Decidedly no. Does the story line bring anything new or ingenious to the story? A resounding no.

Part of the issue I see is that the main character is the young orphaned girl and her movement into this family and the machinations of the plot. She's not that interesting of a character. And the narrow focus that the film takes toward her shuts out the other characters from being able to provide much richness to the story.

This harkens to the great movie and story of Rebbeca in many ways. But that film allowed other characters room to play, and the uncertainty of motivations and conniving increased the sense of tension and dread. As a copy or comparison of that, this films decidedly missed the mark. As a display of a Gothic story, it does all right.

Movie starts slow and takes its time to set out background and character relationships. Expect to be less engaged until the midway point. From there, the movie picks up its pace and the viewer can expect to question what's going on until the end of the film. Who is the victim? Who put this woman in the hospital? Is the woman in the hospital not as helpless as she seems? What is up with Lina? Well this nurse is about to find it all out, so pay attention.

I'm landing on a 6 for this one because it's good and keeps you guessing. A 7 and above needs to be excellent++ and this one falls short just slightly but still worth the watch.

In this movie Lina is adopted by Kathrine - her dead mother's best friend - to live in a mansion that represents all the luxury and glamour Kathrine is used to but recently lost, as upon her husband's death everything was inherited by Jamie - Kathrine's young stepson.

Will this strange family dynamic prevail or will it all turn into a tragedy?

The movie has good vibes but the story was not strong enough and felt like the characters tension wasn't played out well. It was lacking chemistry and often felt like they all had different ideas about how they should portray the characters.

It was anticlimatic, no big revelations or twists, everything was predictable and well, boring.

It felt like they tried too hard to make it scary or thrilling but failed at the attempt even though they had all these amazing scenery but ultimately failed to give it cinematic justice.

This forgettable Netflix thriller is poorly directed, acted and written that I felt ' locked in' and couldn't do anything to turn it off.

Laura would have loved to have tortured me with this junk!

It's unthrilling in its storytelling- no tension, suspense or action so it doesn't grab the audience from the beginning.

It's look is purely TV , a unfocused ,dimly lit splurge- that midway through Laura thought she was watching a TV show by asking" how many episodes is this?" The only thing frightening and creepy is Famke Janssen's face job!

It's also hilarious to see a hospital utterly devoid of other people/patients: day or night- believe me there's always someone about.

When Netflix finance films for their network - Reptile being a prime example, they do it with style and finesse, here it's tedious, bottom of the barrel mid 90s direct to DVD schlock.