Gets it together

Rating: 8/10 (6 January 2019)

Three teenage girls wake up in a locked room, having been kidnapped. They try to figure out how to get out of there. Claire(Lu Richardson, who had just celebrated her birthday when they got taken) and Marcia(Sula, her friend) figure that maybe they can overpower the person keeping them there. They do think that all three of them need to attack together. Casey(Taylor-Joy, easily the second-most compelling actor in this. Very nearly first) refuses. While no one is quite sure why, soon enough the audience will find out. Every so often, the door will be opened. And it may be by the captor. However, ultimately the trio can't be sure exactly who it will be.
I'm not going to give away what is going on for those who wish to go in blind. You can't say very much about this without giving something major away. What I will say, and I realise I'm not alone in doing so, is that James McAvoy gives an incredible performance. I haven't watched very much of M. Night Shyamalan's work, but you'd have to be asleep for the last 15 years to not realise that, while he did deliver the goods the first time(counting from the Sixth Sense and on, as everyone does), and perhaps the next one(which is where I land on it. Unbreakable is amazing) or two, the rest of what he has put out, up to maybe The Visit, has been hated by moviegoers and critics alike. He's back. And how. This is without a doubt one of the best psychological horror films that I have ever watched. And I say that as a huge fan of the subgenre. It's claustrophobic, creepy, unsettling, and the tension is unbelievably thick. Do note that it goes incredibly far to horrify us, and there's definitely an argument to be made that some of it is gratuitous and crosses a line. Or three.
I'm not going to detail the messed up material in this for those who don't want to know beforehand... if you do want to know, the Parents Guide is thorough in describing it. I recommend this to anyone who has the stomach for it and is at all interested in scary stories. 8/10