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.
“Son” has all the necessary elements in order to make a good scary movie, unfortunately, director Ivan Kavanagh seems more interested in delivering textbook horror tropes that we have all seen numerous times before in better-produced horror films, instead of trying to create something original. The movie is beautifully shot though, thanks to cinematographer Piers McGrail, and thankfully, it ignores the handheld gimmick prevalent in so many horror movies these days; scenes are exquisitely photographed, utilizing widescreen, stationary shots, with the occasional tracking shot thrown in. It’s just a pity the rest of the film doesn’t follow suit.
As the movie opens, we are introduced to a very pregnant Laura (Andi Matichak), sitting alone in a dreary diner. Two suspicious-looking men sit down at a table behind her and keep their eyes placed firmly on her. She can feel their stares and quickly runs out of the eatery, leaving them far behind as she hits the road at top speed. She skids off the road into a cornfield where she proceeds to give birth to a baby boy. We cut to many years later and her son David (Luke David Blumm) is in school while Laura is a kindergarten teacher in the same building.
One night, Laura hears a noise coming from David’s room and when she enters, she is shocked to see a large assemblage of people standing around David’s bed. She quickly grabs a weapon and returns to the room only to find it empty. Having called the police, Paul (Emile Hirsch), the detective assigned to her case, searches the house but can find no sign of forced entry or even fingerprints. Shortly after, David begins to exhibit strange behavior, including vomiting blood and bizarre hunger pains. She takes him to the hospital but the doctors are at a loss to try and explain his condition as all their results have come back inconclusive. She takes him home where he appears to recover but the next night he exhibits the same behavior.
During the night, Laura has peculiar dreams about deviant strangers and a demon who speaks to her. She confides in Paul that many years ago, she escaped from a dangerous cult and over time, managed to erase her painful memories but now they seem to be returning in her dreams. After leaving David with a neighbor for a few hours to try and compose herself, Laura comes back to the house only to find David covered in blood. Upon closer inspection, he has ripped her chest open and eaten most of her entrails. She immediately grabs him and they hit the road. Later that night, they stop at a dingy motel, in order to avoid the authorities but soon thereafter, David’s condition returns. Realizing that he needs human flesh in order to survive, she grudgingly entices a local pimp into her room with the promise of sex but when he becomes violent with her, David attacks him and leaves very little of him in the ensuing aftermath.
As Laura’s dreams become more and more vivid, and David’s feeding habits become increasingly more frequent, and uncontrollable, she reluctantly visits an old face from her past, a childhood friend who managed to escape the same cult that she did, and asks him to remind her exactly what happened, so she can retrace her steps and try to find an answer for the horrors going on in her life, and most importantly, David’s inhuman condition.
While there is an interesting script in there somewhere, sadly, it gets lost in the plethora of jump scares and excessively gory images that perpetuate the 98-minute runtime. While I love horror films and understand that bloodshed and carnage are sometimes essential, here, they consume parts of the movie that are reserved for character development and story exposition so rather than getting to know the characters and their backstories, director Ivan Kavanagh determines they are not necessary and gives us more bloodshed and savagery instead. The acting overall is uninspired, with Andi Matichak and the usually reliable Emile Hirsch reduced to cardboard cutouts, literally and figuratively. Some of the religious background statues gave more believable performances. Even some of Ms. Matichak’s emotional scenes come across as amateurish and unnatural, an effect I’m sure director Ivan Kavanagh didn’t intend.
Even the finale, with its big reveal, is so discernible you can see it coming a mile away. With echoes of “The Omen,” “Son” wants to stand on its own two feet but it keeps reminding you of just how superior that film truly is, making you wish you were watching it instead.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD May 18th
