Shut In is a solid presentation of the horror genre at it worst. Completely devoid of scares and lacking in logical taste, this film, directed by Farren Blackburn, leaves two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts dwindling in an exercise of severely ineffective storytelling and lack of effective thrills perpetrated by a script that feels so empty, it is almost difficult to believe this is intended to be a horror movie. It is an hour and a half of Watts wandering seemingly aimlessly around in dark corners of the house while the atmosphere grows intoxicated to an eerie music score that builds up virtually nothing. And the whole ideal grows exhausting to the point where the film has nothing to offer but mindless tedium. The biggest surprise the film has to offer is the big twist at the end, and let's be clear, to say it is a bad twist is way too generous of a word to describe to. It makes wander what Watts was thinking when she signed up to submit herself to this other than to earn herself a paycheck. This film follows child psychologist Mary (played by Naomi Watts) who is left to take care of her 18-year old son Stephen (played by Charlie Heaton) who has been crippled from a car accident that killed his stepfather. While caught in a violent snowstorm, one of her young patients Tommy (played by Jacob Tremblay), a deaf boy, mysteriously goes missing, she must do everything she can do to find him. The best way to sum up this snoozer of a movie is a child abduction thriller with infrequent cheap jump scares and loud eerie music blowing up the audio while the lead character puts poor effort into finding a little boy who is lost and stranded somewhere out in the freezing cold. Are there any ghosts? Nope. Are there a murderous psychopath in a mask wielding a knife? Absolutely not. As clichéd and washed up those horror villains are, placing them one of them as the antagonist would almost make the story a little more competent than it is. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. Instead, this film banks almost entirely not on a creepy music score to intensify the atmosphere and assigns Naomi Watts with the task of creeping around the house at the night because that apparently is supposed to equate for effective scares. And every once a while, something unsettling will occur only for Watts to wake up gasping and reveal it is just a silly little dream sequence. Each of the events that transpire to amount to virtually nothing until the climax when the story hits us with a twist that is, to say the least, beyond ludicrous. Meanwhile, Watts is doing her best to sustain in the lead while Charlie Heaton, fresh from his supporting role in the Netflix series 'Stranger Things' remains stoic to portray a crippled young man who's robbed of his ability to walk and feed himself without the assistance of his mother. Then there is Jacob Tremblay, the young star from 'Room' is given no dialogue due to his character being deaf. But the biggest mystery here is what motivated each of these talented actors to commit to such a head-banging excuse of a film like this. Shut In is a movie devoid of everything representing a good competent horror flick and leaves its audiences trudging through an hour-and- half soul-sucking tedium, that is if they are even willing to its entirety. It is a dull representation of the horror genre that was probably best being left on the shelf.

This is one of those movies that initially messes with the viewer so much that you end up losing the will to invest.Cheap jump scares, visions and apparent dream sequences all thrown at you just makes for uninteresting viewing, there is very little by way of real substance.Just over half way through, the plot twist (which is obvious) reveals itself, and therefore the movie is subsequently typical cat and mouse shenanigans.Zzzzz

A worn out idea for a thriller and a poor script (Christina Hodson) to translate the tired idea to the screen may have survived as a B movie, but director Farren Blackburn has a clue as to how to make it convincing. If the film is free on TV you may want to use it as background noise for 91 minutes while texting friends or gaming, but otherwise this is a 'pass'. The film opens in New England with Mary (Naomi Watts), a child psychologist working from home, bidding farewell to her 18-year-old stepson Stephen (Charlie Heaton). His father, Richard (Peter Outerbridge), is taking him to a special school for the summer. Stephen is very angry. On the way, he and his father get into an argument and Richard reminds him that he wasn't the one who got expelled. The car goes out of control and skids into the path of an oncoming truck, killing Richard and leaving Stephen paralyzed from the neck down. Some time later we find Mary, widowed, left to care for Stephen's every need. Caught in a deadly winter storm, she must find a way to rescue a young boy Tom before he disappears forever. And this opens the door to 'ghosts' Mary suffers – only to discover the truth about Stephen and Tom through the inept advice of her psychologist friend Dr. Wilson (Oliver Platt). These fragments (and plenty of other non- contributory ones) are tossed together and out comes a silly attempt at a horror film that even quality actors like Watts and Platt cannot salvage. Pass.

This film definitely does not deserve all the hate. It was a good solid thriller, the acting was good, and so was the cinematography. Although there was some slight homage to the Shining, it was far from being predictable or derivative, and it kept the viewer guessing until close to the end. Perhaps to help out the less- informed viewer, one of the characters should have explained the "shut-in syndrome" at the outset, knowledge of which might have added to the intrigue for some of those panning this well-made indie movie.