Shut In is a thriller without the thrill, an exercise in jump scenes without the jumps.
Is it possible that the lake is actually filled with ethyl alcohol? Does the story take place in a distant time when global warming has created some eerie microclimate around Mary’s house? Answers are elusive.
WATCH SHUT IN 2016 FREE
Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain why a horrific winter Maine snowstorm would be so rainy, or why during the same snowstorm-at night, mind you-the nearby lake would be completely free of ice. It was created by folks who, perhaps, have never ventured far from the world’s equatorial regions. We can only assume that she owed the movie’s makers a very, very large favor. Sure, it stars Naomi Watts, a two-time Oscar nominee. I’m writing this review in the late fall of 2016, normally a season when studios are beginning to release what they think are their very best movies, prestige dramas they hope will merit awards consideration. Characters struggle against other characters. People get their hands scorched on stoves and beaned with frying pans. I suppose it’s even possible that they just rarely open that particular door and that the body’s been sitting there for years. I think it’s supposed to be a character we meet earlier, though what that character is doing at the door is unexplained. The body is just discovered outside the farmhouse in a pile of snow, either grotesquely frozen or grotesquely burned in some mysterious manner. Still another dies by-well, it’s impossible to say how, exactly. Another is thwacked on the head with a hammer-falling into a lake, where the body bobs around. One person is stabbed and left to die, bleeding out slowly. The other casualties (and there are others) aren’t dealt with such care. Stephen and his father struggle inside the car, sending it skidding in front of a truck when the screen goes dark. The movie’s first casualty, Mary’s husband, essentially takes place off screen. In another, she rushes into her farmhouse, then slams the door on her son’s fingers twice, drawing a great deal of blood. In one, she pushes his head under the water while she bathes him. What you really should be wondering, Mary, is how in the world a 9-year-old kid got to your super-secluded, über-rural abode in the first place. The kid’s in the house, OK? One need not be a well-educated child psychologist to figure this out. The unused crawl space the door to which seems strangely ajar … But still, it’s yet another thing to ponder as she considers the scratching she hears in the walls. As she tells a friend, she’s “weathered” worse. Mary’s not overly worried about the storm. Those storms can terrifically damaging, shutting down power for days and blocking roads for longer. Now, a brutal winter storm is bearing down on Maine. Her own shrink tells her that she’s likely just hallucinating a bit-the product of too much work and not enough sleep.īut then there are the little scratches she sees on Stephen’s face … Sometimes, she even sees him in doorways. And when he doesn’t rematerialize in the morning, everyone fears the worst: Surely Tom has frozen to death.īut Mary can’t shake the feeling that Tom’s still around. On a cold winter’s night in Maine, with the temperature dipping well below freezing. And when Mary calls Tom’s caretaker, the deaf boy suddenly … vanishes.
Mary realizes this when the boy shows up at her rural Maine farmhouse, hiding in her car. Only now, suddenly, his caretaker plans to ship him off to Boston.īut Tom doesn’t want to go. But Mary’s convinced that he was making progress while in her psychiatric care. Tom got in trouble for breaking another child’s arm at school, too, and he does seem to get a little touchy when touched. Sure, the kid had his problems: He’s deaf, for one thing, and parentless for another. One of them is Tom, a child about half Stephen’s age. Mary still finds time to work with other children when Stephen’s in front of the telly. Mary now doubles as his full-time caretaker: feeding him his porridge, bathing him, wiping his chin, hoisting him up in his wheelchair so he can watch television 12 hours a day. Then, as her husband was taking the kid to another school-the boarding variety for troubled teens-their car hit a semi head-on, killing her hubby and leaving Stephen essentially catatonic. The child psychologist’s troubles began the day that Stephen, her stepson, was expelled from school.
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