Sommerleigh Pollonais, Horror Head Writer
Plot: When a young boy contracts a mysterious illness his mother must decide how far she will go to protect him from terrifying forces in her past.
Review: How far would a mother go for her child? This is the question at the heart of this supernatural nightmare called simply Son. While watching this, I couldn’t help but think of it as a pseudo-sequel to Rosemary’s Baby.
Andi Matichak, who is most famous for her recent role as Laurie Strode’s granddaughter Allyson in Halloween 2018, plays Laura, a young single mom happily living with her son David (Luke David Blumm). Their quiet lives are upended when one night Laura finds strangers standing over her son in his room. Before she can enter the door slams in her face locking her out. Very quickly after this young David grows very ill. And with no medical cure in sight and no proof there were ever any intruders in her home, the family become trapped in a waking nightmare where everyone thinks Laura is crazy as she races to find a cure for her only child.
Director and writer Ivan Kavanagh does a superb job of balancing the psychological and supernatural elements of this story. You the viewer are left wondering if Laura’s demons are real or imagined. Andi Matichak is wonderful in this role as well as I totally bought her as a young mother, even though I just saw her playing a teenager. Emile Hirsch also stars in this movie as a cop who cares for Laura and David and who is caught in the middle as the bodies begin to pile up. Speaking of which, the blood and gore here should please most horror fans. And although there isn’t a lot of it, the way it’s utilised is very effective.
Of all the horror movies I’ve seen for the year so far, Son is definitely the best of the bunch. The slow pace might bore some, but I thought it was pitch perfect and gave the dread room to grow and breathe. The lead actress does a stellar job of keeping you invested in her plight and, while the story does feel a tad predictable in places (or at least it will to those who watch a lot of horror flicks), I still think Son is strong successor to horror films like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Alan Parker’s Angel Heart.
Sommer’s Score: 6.5 out of 10
For my review of horror film Come Play you can click here. Or for my review of supernatural horror Sinister you can click here.
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
Double Tap Baby!
You can also follow me as Moviejunkies Cont’d on Facebook (where you’ll get my reviews hot off the press together with lots of other cool stuff like anime, comics, horror and video games) and watch my movie review videos on YouTube. For my longer bio you can click here.