A Lack of Tension

Rating: 5/10 (1 January 2019)

There is a common criticism that the movie is a rip off of A Quiet Place. While its premise definitely had a similar feel to A Quiet Place, and it's easy to associate the lack of a sense with not being able to make noise, the plots of these two movies were completely different. The biggest problem with this is it takes away from the ACTUAL problems it had. Namely that it set itself up for failure by trying to create tension in scenes where the characters were only in danger of tripping or running into something.
As long as they left their blindfolds on they couldn't be affected by the shadows. So, in the end of the movie, from the moment Sandra Bullock made it to the kids the tension didn't feel earned or weighted. They tried to make it seem like they were in some sort of danger by having the wind pickup and showing us the shadows behind them, but they spent the movie telling you that as long as they didn't look they couldn't be hurt. They tried to combat this by giving you the people that were enslaved by the shadows, cause they could go where the shadows couldn't. But in that final scene they made it clear that they were only being pursued by the shadows. So, the only tension in the finale of the movie was "will they make it to the front door or will they mistakenly run into a window?"
In the end, I didn't hate the movie. It had some solid performances from John Malkovich and Travante Rhodes, in particular. But, some of the logistics of the premise made it difficult for me to get into the movie.