If you have trouble sleeping, hit “play”
A first time mother gets delusional over baby.
This feature had the feel of a MOW (movie of the week). Though I doubt Lifetime would run it up the flagpole. Sure, it had atmosphere at times and decent lighting, but twenty minutes could have easily been hacked off the ninety-five minute run time.
As for the movie, this is writer/director Issac Webb’s first feature. Yet, how this slow moving beast of confusion and nothingness got greenlit and made it to the screen is its own mystery.
Now, I don’t need everything tied up neatly in a bow, after all, I’m a big David Lynch fan, but give me some gateway to possible answers for some of the odd occurrences. Please.
Worst still were the characters: Although Elizabeth Shue did her best as whiny mother Laura, she was simply annoying. In short order, any semblance of compassion by the audience for this pouty train wreck of a woman was clearly destroyed by the beginning of act two. The workaholic husband, doing his damnedest to impress his bosses – how droll – also sported his own poutiness in the face of actor Steven Mackinosh (though he somehow manages to secure an entire month off when his wife truly, truly needs help with baby Jessica for real this time). And of course, we had the creepy old babysitter, who… whatever. It’s as if Webb plucked his characters off the shelf at your local and utterly decrepit K-Mart.
Since there was little happening, especially with a group full of solemn and cardboard characters, the climax was extremely clear from the beginning and leaves the audience without any shock and awe – just a yawn. And a big one at that. In fact, suspense was annihilated early on when it became blatantly obvious this was one of those “Is it in her mind?” movies.
Regardless, Webb and the rest did not bring anything new or palpable to the genre. A half-star goes to the Camera and Electrical Department for making this drek look better than it deserves.
0.5 out of 5 stars