Shelley

The plot of the movie is simple but it develops fairly astonishingly. The dark atmosphere starts to appear from the beginning of the movie and turns into a not releasing stress in the middle. The suspend builds up all the way close to the ending which is the strength of this movie.

The movie has three distinguishing features:

The English language has made it possible to be understandable by many audiences and the writer has used the excuse of a foreign maid in the house for English language.

I was sick of the ghosts of many recent horror movies which had their mouths open too wide and loud. This movie was a cool breeze away from the failed horrors. The director has done an amazing job to keep up the suspense with almost no special computer effect or crawling long hair lady.

The performances of the actors were really satisfying. Except for the two women, the others were not talking that much which was good. The two women (Elena and Louis) were pretty good and amazing at some scenes.

All by all, a great movie which I re-watch Although I would like it more if it was longer and it had more development at the ending.

A barren wife engages a maid in her remote home, before propositioning the girl with money to become a surrogate mother. The plan works ... until the baby kicks in.

Direction and editing are very good, setting the scene at a fair pace in a claustrophobic world with only three characters. Particularly good early on is the relationship between the women, which gives a genuine feel of them getting to know each other and enjoying their company. Lovely acting, and I got a good chuckle when the maid stuck her tongue out.

The sense of unease is created with subtle music, and the photography makes use of well lit landscapes and close ups. But why are we uneasy? I kept guessing where the threat was coming from, but sadly it comes from nowhere, so I began losing patience about halfway through. There were a couple of interesting efforts to deliver the evil eye from the baby, but it's another case for Inspector Babadook - horror methods used to give a frisson to personal difficulties that might be psychological, might be spiritual.

Problems with the story. The maid's background is interesting - educated but poor immigrant ground up by the West's wealth machine, but that doesn't inform her character, even though she's the plaything of unaccountably wealthy hippies. No attention paid to the fact she was effectively lured in with lies - when the proposition was made I was thinking, Uh oh. Apparently I was wrong. So where did we come from, and where did we end up? I dunno. Even the shaman departed in a state of confusion.

This is a Danish production, but mostly in English in the first part, so no need for subtitles until about 40 mins. And the first time I've seen fisting in a drama - shouldn't he have had it torn off at the wrist?

Overall, unfathomable because it lacks depth.

Granted this film is a slow burn but the cinematography, dark atmosphere, acting, and score was top notch. Should watch when you are more relaxed and patient cause when you get there you will found it was worth the wait. I am a huge horror fan and I am sick and tired of the basic 90 min horror films that throw all the things at you in the first frame but with this director you have to have patience to fully understand the movie. There was 3 scenes I had to rewind that I missed the first time of viewing this movie. I agree with the thought of Rosemary's Baby by the way of David Lynch and I think it deserves a view. This is a solid horror film.

Like watching a Tarantula molt, this film is incredibly fascinating, disturbing and effective. But, man, is it slow! Everything happens at a snails pace, and regardless of how thought provoking the events are, it does not excuse the pace of this supposed "horror" film. I am all for a slow-burn, in fact, I prefer them to teenage jump scares and other sophomoric tactics. But this movie literally made me want to watch it at 2X the speed, just so that people would pick up the f-ing pace. You know how there are movies that would have been effective if the creative teams knew how to just get to the good parts and edit themselves accordingly? This is one of those films. Had they been more overt with the horror elements, and made things flow just a bit faster, this would have been a worthy addition to the "baby horror" sub-genre. As it stands, it plods along, thinking it is being suspenseful, but in reality, it's just not getting there fast enough. Not recommended, as I am unsure that even the most ardent "slow-burn" fan will appreciate the pace of this film. That being said, the acting is superb, and the cinematography is top-notch.

A subtle horror film not without its moments of suspense and utter creepiness. We follow Elena (accountant turned housekeeper, for some reason) who gets close to her employers (a couple who live in an isolated house without modern amenities, for some reason). She wants to save money quickly to go back to her son and so agrees to be surrogate mother for their baby.

The film was too slow for some, so if you need quick doses of jumpscares and shock tactics, this isn't one for you. However, I found the departure from mainstream action horror and script to be very refreshing. I was not bored at any point in the movie, because it does an excellent job of building character and relationships in the first half hour. If anything, I was impatient to see where it was all leading, because the story has some unpredictable turn of events.

Not a lot was answered by the open ending, so you need to pay attention to little details throughout the film, and theories will inevitably run amok with plenty of evidence for more than one horror scenarios. Also, it is always a good sign when you can sympathize will ALL of the characters (which are few to be sure, but very well played).

It is the most convincing horror movie to come out in a while, and I recommend it to anyone who can get roped into a horror story without a sense of urgency.