31 Days of Halloween: I See You

 2019, Adam Randall (iBoy) -- download / Amazon

This movie almost felt like watching two, maybe three different movies, wherein the different acts of the film take on the different perspectives they are formed from. More a psycho thriller than an outright horror, it never really lets you know this until deep in the movie. 

The movie opens on family tension. The music is atonal often discordant, telling us this is going to be a weird movie. Expectations are set, and established, as the family: Jackie (Helen Hunt, Mad About You), her husband Greg (John Tenney, True Detective) and their son Connor (Judah Lewis, The Babysitter) are terse with each other, downright unfair at times. Later, we find it is because she had an affair. Greg is a cop, who suddenly has to deal with the disappearance of two boys, likely by a re-emerger serial killer from the town's past. Everything about this setup is upsetting and unsettling, especially as things start happening in the family home: strange shadowy figures, things going missing, odd sounds. It all culminates when the man Jackie had an affair with shows up, seemingly drunk and demanding, only to be murdered in their basement. They believe Connor did it, and bury the body in the woods. As if this family didn't have enough stress.

*spoilers*

And then we shift.

Suddenly we are seeing through a video camera, as two phroggers, like squatters, except they hide in your house while you are there, only emerging when its safe to come out, move into Jackie and Greg's house. Alec (Owen Teague, It) and Mindy (Libe Barer, Sneaky Pete) are filming their activity hoping to make some YouTube money. But Alec isn't as cautious as Mindy, proving to be the shadowy figure, and responsible for all the strange activity in the house both while the couple are there, and while they are away. Even Mindy is getting worried, as Alec begins to act more and more unhinged. While this goes on, the music style has changed, the camera work has changed, we are almost in a different movie. Our expectations have had to shift.

And shift again. The murder is explained, as is so much. But not everything, nor does it need to be.

I will not dive into, leaving something for you to learn, but suffice, I did not see it coming until much of the plans had been laid out for me. And that, on top of everything else, made me like this movie. I like seeing the unexpected, not knowing what would and could happen next.

As a final note, while not really related to the movie itself, I was oft distracted early in the movie by the cosmetic surgery Helen Hunt displayed. To me, the utter unnatural look almost added a body horror element to the movie. I don't want to judge, and I cannot walk in her shoes, but I cannot subscribe to this trend that replaces the natural look of aging with looking intensely inhuman.

Also of note, the poster depicts a frog (phrog?) mask, not a monkey.