KSL Movie Show review: ‘Never Let Go’ is a good horror film, just don’t make me watch it again
Sep 20, 2024, 9:18 AM
Steve Salles says Halle Berry's new horror movie, "Never Let Go", is worth the time to watch.
Editor’s note: This is an editorial piece. An editorial, like a news article, is based on fact but also shares opinions. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and are not associated with our newsroom.
SALT LAKE CITY — It’s no secret that I don’t enjoy being scared.
Yet when it comes to roller coasters, I’m all in. The difference is one is physical; the other is mental. I can see where the roller coaster is trying to take me, while a scary movie is a series of unknowns that my soggy brain can’t come to grips with.
I do appreciate a horror film that is challenging, creative, not reliant on jump scare and keeps me guessing the whole way through — just don’t make me see it again.
That’s where I am with “Never Let Go.”
The setting is a rundown cabin deep in the woods, where June (Halle Berry) was raised. She’s now the mother of fraternal twin boys, Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV), determined to protect them from an evil she claims has destroyed the world.
The house rule is that as long as they stay connected to the “ancient wood” of the house, evil cannot get them through a rope around the waist. There are no exceptions to the rule EVER. Momma has made that abundantly clear, even to the point of locking them in a dark, under-the-floor box, to cleanse their minds of any weak thoughts.
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They are now ten years old. Sam is still deeply connected to Momma’s mindset, while Nolan is beginning to wonder if Momma is sick and that there’s nothing wrong with the real world, but the only way to find out is to disobey Momma’s strict commands.
The beguiling part of this movie is even though we see creatures in the woods through Momma’s eyes on occasion, we’re not sure we can trust those visions to either be genuine or simply figments of her potentially, broken mind.
Even their daily adventures to forage through the woods for food are nerve-wracking. Trying to reach something, when they’re literally at the end of their ropes, is so agonizingly intense that I caught myself several times with a firm death grip on the theater armrests. Just thinking back on it now, makes my heart race.
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That is a horror film doing its job. It doesn’t hurt that the film’s Director Alexandre Aja has a respectable resume in the fright game. He burst onto the scene with “High Tension” in 2003, was then asked by Wes Craven himself to remake his movie “The Hills Have Eyes” and later he launched the terrifying 2019 “Crawl” featuring giant gators in surging flood waters under a house. All pretty rough stuff.
This leads us back to the woods with crazy or not Halle Berry trying to protect her questioning sons from an evil that may or may not exist.
“Never Let Go” is an exceptionally terrifying, intense movie that features terrific performances, by even the young boys, who all do a great job looking horrified, and thus passing those fears onto the rest of us – for better or worse.
NEVER LET GO is rated R for strong violent content and grisly images. Starring Halle Berry, Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV, William Catlett and Matthew Kevin Anderson. Directed by Alexandre Aja (“Piranha 3D” “Crawl”) – filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia. Running time: 101 minutes.
