Waste of time

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Steven Portman (Charlie Heaton) is an angry teen and causes his father to drive into a truck. Six months later, Steven is in a vegetative state and his father is dead. His stepmother Mary (Naomi Watts) is struggling to care for him. She's a child psychologist. Tom Patterson (Jacob Tremblay) is a deaf patient who goes missing.The story telling is muddled but worst than that, it's lackluster. It tries to be a little bit of Shinning with the snowy isolation. There are too many "It's a Nightmare" reveals. A great actor like Oliver Platt gets only fleeting appearances. I actually thought Tremblay would have more screen time. Overall, this movie does a lot of nothing scenes that hopes to build the mood but really does nothing at all. None of it is scary. There is an obvious twist that I fear would happen. Sure enough, it does and it's as lame as that.

A worn out idea for a thriller and a poor script (Christina Hodson) to translate the tired idea to the screen may have survived as a B movie, but director Farren Blackburn has a clue as to how to make it convincing. If the film is free on TV you may want to use it as background noise for 91 minutes while texting friends or gaming, but otherwise this is a 'pass'. The film opens in New England with Mary (Naomi Watts), a child psychologist working from home, bidding farewell to her 18-year-old stepson Stephen (Charlie Heaton). His father, Richard (Peter Outerbridge), is taking him to a special school for the summer. Stephen is very angry. On the way, he and his father get into an argument and Richard reminds him that he wasn't the one who got expelled. The car goes out of control and skids into the path of an oncoming truck, killing Richard and leaving Stephen paralyzed from the neck down. Some time later we find Mary, widowed, left to care for Stephen's every need. Caught in a deadly winter storm, she must find a way to rescue a young boy Tom before he disappears forever. And this opens the door to 'ghosts' Mary suffers – only to discover the truth about Stephen and Tom through the inept advice of her psychologist friend Dr. Wilson (Oliver Platt). These fragments (and plenty of other non- contributory ones) are tossed together and out comes a silly attempt at a horror film that even quality actors like Watts and Platt cannot salvage. Pass.

I will admit that the makers of "Shut In" managed to make a pretty good looking movie despite having a non-blockbuster budget, but that is about the only good thing to be found here. Watching it, it quite often struck me that it seemed it was made by people who didn't understand the thriller genre. The first half of the movie is pretty dull stuff; it feels like the movie is continuously spinning its wheels by presenting a lot of unnecessary material. There is very little done in this first half to thrill or creep out the audience, and when there is an effort it comes across as stuff you have seen in many other thrillers before. (The movie even has the gall to do the "it's only a dream" routine twice!) The second half of the movie, when the danger finally exposes itself, does try harder to shake the audience, but even then what happens more often than not is tired and familiar; you have seen it all before, and done much better as well. It's no surprise why the distributor gave this a half-hearted release and marketing campaign. In a few years, all memory of this movie will be shut out by the movie-going public.

Shut In is a psychological thriller that waste good talent like Naomi Watts that not only lacks thrills and scares. But it does not even have a compelling plot to even care for. Sure, there could be other home invasion thriller films that would be worth watching unlike this film. The plot follows psychologist Mary (Naomi Watts) after her marriage is struggling and her husband and her teenage son Steven (Charlie Heston) were going away. They were caught in a tragic car accident leaving Steven in a vegetated state. Mary is struggling trying to manage with her work and taking care of her son, and to make matters worse a snow storm is keeping them isolated in their home. When one of Mary's patient who is a kid Tom (Jacob Tremblay) goes missing in her area. Mary starts encountering strange noise in her house, feeling like someone is trying to stalk her. The script lacked characterization or development to the story which made it difficult to even care for what is happening. It does feel like the script writer took some ideas off from other thriller films like The Shining or Psycho. Let's throw some curve ball of having Mary struggle with insomnia and paranoia. The twist was not as appealing when it happened in the last half of the movie. Yes, the film started getting a little exciting when the climax is shown. But it's not worth spending the entire movie seeing Mary, managing her personal life and working with her patient Tom.The film lacked thrills and scares. It was a yawn fest waiting for anything to happen in the movie. Naomi Watts is a talented actress and this film seemed a little beneath her. But was probably an easy cash grab to be part of the project. Overall, Shut In was a horrible film, it lacked scares or thrills, dull concept that other films done it better, and the plot was undeveloped that seemed pointless.