A father and his daughter are haunted by the spirit of his vindictive ex-wife.
HORROR
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Separation (2021)Directed by William Brent Bell
Written by Nick Amadeus and Josh Braun Starring Rupert Friend, Mamie Gummer, Brian Cox, Madeline Brewer, Violet McGraw, Simon Quarterman, Eric T. Miller |
William Brent Bell should probably stop making horror films. He's yet to have a decent flick under his belt, from the godawful The Devil Inside to the much-aligned The Boy to the predictable trainwreck called Separation. I've seen this film so many times. I'm so goddamn tired of this film. Mainstream, big-budget ghost films are stuck in an endless loop. The same damn script keeps getting recycled, with different dead-end actors (and one big name as an anchor) and a slightly different creepy-faced ghost coupled with cheap, predictable scares and a twist we all saw coming a mile away. It's time to retire this horseshit.
Rupert Friend is woefully miscast as Jeff, a former comic book artist who hasn't had a job in three years and has been mooching off his uber-bitch wife and her rich family. Granted, she has grounds to be upset, but the lengths she goes to make sure he never sees his daughter again is pretty unrealistic. I mean, he's just unemployed. He's not a monster. But when she dies, Jeff is in the clear, and frankly, you don't feel bad for Maggie's (Gummer) death in the slightest. She's just the worst, and now she's a ghost who has the face of a creepy puppet for some reason. All the scares that come with her are lukewarm at best. I felt that Brian Cox was underused, and was just there to be a thorn in Jeff's side for no legal reason. Jeff never shows a shimmer of emotion in any direction, and you end up with nobody to root for. As I said, I'm so tired of seeing this exact movie every year. Leave horror to the filmmakers with some imagination. There's so few of them left. |