outthere

A young mother takes her daughters to a remote lakeside house. While waiting for her husband to arrive, strange things begin to happen…

He’s Out There was shown at FrightFest 2018. I didn’t see it there, due to a conflict with another film showing at the event. It did sound interesting however. Now that it is on Netflix, I thought I would check it out and see what I missed.

It’s written by Mike Scannell and directed by Quinn Lasher (more on this later) and according to the IMDB this was the first film as a writer for Scannell and the only credit for Lasher. I bring this up, as in some ways, you can tell this is, in effect, a debut film. By that I mean it has strengths and weaknesses.

The idea of the film isn’t bad, however it does have some issues with it’s story. I don’t need to have everything explained to me. I much prefer films where the filmmakers credit the audience with being able to fill in details if need be. However, here the problem is that we don’t really understand the reasoning of the person behind the terror and violence here. On the one hand, this can be more frightening, not fully understanding the horror unfolding, but on the other, you do need some information to help at times. Here, we need to know a little more about the killer’s motives. There’s also the suggestion something in his past is responsible for what he does, but I don’t feel it was developed enough. In some ways it has similar issues in that regard to a film called 3rd Night and also a film shown the night before at FrightFest, Incident In A Ghostland, both films which have basic story similarities with He’s Not There.

To be clear, I am not saying He’s Not There is derivative of those other films. I have said often that films don’t always have to be truly original, just made well, making you care about the characters and what they go through. Get that right, your film has a chance.

And on this level, He’s Not There works. Thanks to terrific performances from Yvonne Strahovski as the mother, Laura and from Anna and Abigail Pniowsky as the daughters, Kayla and Maddie, you do care what happens to them right up until the ending.

The film director is credited as Quinn Lasher, his debut. However, according to the IMDB (and I accept this could be unreliable) the film’s director was Dennis Iliadis, who also directed the remake of The Last House On The Left. However when the film was dropped as a theatrical release and the director credit was changed from Iliadis to Quinn Lasher. Now, I don’t know if this was an ‘Alan Smithee’ type of situation, of the director unhappy with either the film or behind the scenes issues, or if there was an actual change of director, but what I can say is that I do think the film is well directed.

There is a slow building of tension, which is maintained and the action is bloody and while not truly scary, it is a suspenseful film.

The final act is mostly well done, almost throwing in a surprise which would have made the ending more more potentially daring, but even so I think the ending is good, although the last minute moment, while I understand why they did it, I personally felt the film could do without it.

I mentioned the lack of originality in the film. To be fair it’s not the first film to suffer that, or the last. But even so, I did like the film aside from one thing, the threat to the children. It’s a personal thing, but recently I’ve issues with films where children are under threat and I do have those concerns here. It’s perhaps to the credit of the child actresses that makes me feel this way though. But, as I said I did like the film.

Despite my issues with it, He’s Out There I feel is a film worth looking out for.

Rating: *** out of 5