Review by h2223

It's watchable... but you wonder why you're watching it. I suppose it's because Donald Sutherland and Jaeden Martell do a great job of acting. The problem is, they're acting out a confused script. What does this movie want to be? What's it *actually* about? Calling it a "horror" film is laughable. There's nothing even particularly chilling about it, much less "horrifying." There isn't even much drama or intrigue.

I noticed throughout that it felt like the filmmakers were trying to combine the likes of Shawshank, Green Mile, It, and perhaps My Dog Skip into some kind of mashup that at times felt like a Disney movie about a boy who's lost his mother and is trying to navigate his late teens and early adulthood, and at other times felt like it was trying to make some kind of political or social statement.

The film did not do any of these things artfully, skillfully, or thoroughly -- leaving me with the feeling that I should comment on the "meh"-ness of the movie, but certainly not leaving me with a single unifying theme or moral to take away. No real insight. Nothing about human nature or life to really process. Just, I guess, "Remember when the iPhone was new?" Yeah, I do, and this film didn't even manage to make me feel nostalgic about that.

Why did this movie get made? Beats me. Maybe the Stephen King story was better and actually gave you some meat to walk away with, but the film fails in that regard. I give it a solid 4 for acting and cinematography, nothing more.