‘Never Let Go’ Review – The Good, The Evil, and Snakes
In Never Let Go, a woman known only as Momma (Halle Berry) lives in the middle of nowhere with her two sons Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV). Secluded in the wilderness away from the city, Momma relies on the forest to provide for her and her family.
But nothing is growing and what little stash of food Momma had is dwindling. Momma and her two boys have to hunt and gather daily only to feast on scraps, insects, and tree bark regularly. Momma claims that the rest of the world has ended and only the darkness remains. This is all there is now.
People close to Momma who have died now live in the forest taunting her to leave her home and away from safety. They tie a rope around their bodies that has been tethered to the house’s foundation to keep them safe as they look for food, but one moment away from that rope is all the darkness needs to possess them and make them one of its own.
The catch is that Momma is the only one who can see the possessed and the only one who has seen the world outside the forest. Momma’s oldest son, Sam, trusts her completely and does whatever she says. But the younger of the two brothers, Nolan, is beginning to doubt his mother’s teachings. Maybe this evil is all in her head.
French director Alexandre Aja has always struggled with ambiguity. He has never shied away from gore even with his foray into American remakes. However, he has typically been known as a director in the horror genre who knows how to create memorable bloody carnage around an underdeveloped story.
High Tension, Aja’s French slasher film from 2003, delivers on the bloodshed but falls apart once the twist is revealed; certain kills and sequences suddenly weren’t logical and it nearly ruined what had been a perfect slasher up until that point.
Never Let Go finesses that ambiguity to a much more satisfying degree. The film toys with Momma’s beliefs as her sons are the equivalent of the shoulder angel plot device, but figuring out which son is the devil and which is the angel is one of the film’s strongest points.
Writers KC Coughlin and Ryan Grassby have sprinkled doubt and uncertainty as little seedlings that sprout into full-grown rooted trees full of red flags throughout the film. The audience constantly questions which brother is what right up until the end.
The clever part is that most of those questions don’t come until the last few words of dialogue are spoken.
For an Aja film, Never Let Go is light on horror. Most of the horror comes from the dead people in the forest often appearing as they died spewing this black tar-like liquid from their mouth and a forked snake tongue.
The possessed usually turn into something monstrous with less than stellar CGI effects. Taking place at night, heavy shadows and the trees of the forest tend to expertly hide the shortcomings of the VFX.
While the horror elements are present, they’re wrapped within the thrilling and dramatic circumstances of the main storyline. The film is mostly about Momma and her sons trying to find a way to survive with little to no food.
Sam believes they will be alright if they follow what Momma says while Nolan wants to venture from the house to find food and hopefully somewhere safe.
Never Let Go has that fear of what lies in and beyond the woods aspect from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, the questionable motive that keeps you guessing from Bill Paxton’s Frailty, and the tethered to one’s house element from Black Snake Moan.
The film has one jump scare that might work since it’s fairly unexpected and is a nerve-racking and wild thriller despite a lack of scares.
It takes the concept of a presumed snake in the grass and intertwines it with people who look like actual snakes. It shouldn’t work as well as it does, but Never Let Go manages to be a twisty and winding thriller that intrigues far more often than it terrifies.
NEXT: ‘Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice’ Review – The Juice is Reduced
Never Let Go (2024), Lionsgate
PROS
- A concept that works better than it should.
- Some surprising moments.
CONS
- VFX is a little wonky.
- Alex Aja and logic don't mix.
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