Pros: None Cons: The writing: Infantile writing by typical hollywood children. The child is the adult and the adult is the child. Pace: Why don't we just dddddrrrraaaaggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg everything out to the 1,000,000 degree since we've got nothing of value to say. Flashbacks? In a horror flick? This was just plain stupid. stupid. stupid. Added nothing to this dumb effort. This writer is not capable of doing a decent flashback in the best of times.Hey but if you want to waste 91 minutes, go for it.

This movie had a lot of potential going in, very classic monster movie feel. The relationship between the mother and daughter has great character dynamic as well. However, everything is basically thrown away in the last act. It's a shame that a lot of talented people did so much apparent hard work to make this movie of good quality, only to have it all trashed by terrible writing in the last act. The movie would have been better had they ended it when the ambulance went off the road. That wouldn't be a great ending but it would be better than the trash they tacked on at the end. The whole monster doesn't like light thing is clamy and not consistent in the movie. The Mom suicide/sacrifice is unmotivated. The girl stopping the monster in midair with an aresol can, is just bad all the way around. The monster can stop a moving ambulance, but aerosol yielded by a little girl is too much for it. Then is the monster made of purely flameable material, because it went up like a bonfire with just a kiss of flame? Really? All this throwing away of a good movie for some half baked, backwards message that little girls are empowered to fight the monsters on their own.

6 1/2Two distinct souls coexist in the same movie : we have the complicated relationship background between mother and daughter, which is very touching and wisely built, and the horror/slasher counterpart, that is definitely less thought out, rougher and conventional. All in all, they tend to mash up pretty well, converging in the end in a cathartic epilogue, but there's some flaws along the way that kinda lower the level.

Just watched this and loved it. Another smart addition to the encouragingly robust genre of smart and allegorically innovative horror movies. My take? The monster is simply Kathy's addiction, as experienced by daughter Lizzy. it attacks when she's vulnerableit removes people who are there to protect her (Lizzy's father (the actual addiction)/ the tow truck guy and the paramedics (the metaphorical monster))shining a light on it/ acknowledging it weakens itonce you've acknowledged it, you're in a better place, but you still have to go through withdrawal and might be too damaged to pull through (Kathy vomiting blood in the woods due to her internal injuries)despite your best intentions, innocents will still suffer because of it. (Lizzy undergoes her mother's "overdose" and death, and then still has to grapple with the monster on her own.)Finally, the ultimate version of "shining a light on something", i.e. setting it on fire, is what allows her to be free, albeit with a forever altered view of her own safety, and the security of the world in general. [ Fun add on-- she had to sacrifice her childhood/ innocence, i.e. her singing teddy bear, in order to finally overcome the monster. ]A lot of people are commenting on the weird/ unbelievable choices made by the characters in the third act. If you're looking at it as a straight up horror movie, I could understand that. But seeing it through the lens of the pretty obvious analogy that was being made about addiction, they all felt totally spot on to me. Definitely recommend!