Never Let Go

Through the years, Hollywood has created the genres of horror and that of the thriller, however recently they have decided to couple the two genres to produce the horror/thriller genre. It's certainly the best of both worlds whereas it has a horrific premise, but the trek to get the audience through the film keeps them on the edge of their seats. Case in point is "Never Let Go" in where it delineates these two genres with precision. 

In this psychological thriller/horror, as a Evil takes over the world beyond their front doorstep, the only protection for a mother, Joba (Halle Berry) and her twin sons, Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) and Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) is their house and their family's protective bond. Needing to stay connected at all times--even tethering themselves with ropes--they cling to one another, urging each other to never let go, But when one of the boys questions if the evil is real, the ties that bind them together are severed, triggering a terrifying fight for survival. Which is it? Is this evil real? Is the mother simply confused and seeing things? Or is this all a bad dream?

Others to round out the cast are William Catlett as Joba's husband, Matthew Kevin Anderson as Cole, Mila Morgan as young girl, Stephanie Lavigne as the Evil, Christin Park as paramedic, Georges Gracieuse as old man and Cadence Compton as young girl. 

This was directed with extreme intensity and grit by Alexandre Aja ("Furia" '99, "High Tension" '03,"The Hills Have Eyes" '06, "Mirrors" '08, "Piranha 3D" '10, "Horns" '13, "The 9th Life of Louis Drax" '16, "Crawl" '19, "Oxygen" '21) plus shorts and a video. This filmmaker certainly knows his way around a horror or thriller hence his resume. I know when I saw his "Crawl", I was literally on the edge of my seat! He has the innate ability to pull his audience through the proverbial knothole emotionally and even phisically since one will feel drained after the film. It was effectively written by KC Coughlin ("Mean Dreams" '16, "The King Tide" (story) '23) plus TV and a short and Ryan Grassby ("Mean Dreams" '16, "The King Tide" (story) '23) plus TV. The premise of this, in some ways, is reminiscent to the earlier film this year called "Arcadian" with Nicholas Cage, which is about a father with his twin sons, is attempting to survive an apocalyptic time striving to survive monsters that come out at night, but are absent during the day. The difference of the two films is that with this film, there is an evil that will attack always, day or night and the other, they attack at night and are monsters, otherwise there is a fair amount of similarities. With this film, there were more than one instance where situations didn't add up and where there were things that simply couldn't have happened, but otherwise was a tight script and definitely put the 'I' in intensity. 

If you like horror or thriller type films, you'll revel with this. Believe me, I'm not specifically a huge fan of horror, but coupled with the thriller aspect won it for me. And this is truly an incredible role for Berry. Her fear, protectiveness of her sons, anger and other emotions were off the charts, but emotions that one would certainly understand. 

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                      Rated: R                                            101mins.