He's Out There

This was a movie that started out pretty good, with impressive acting by the mom and her two girls. Their bonding feels real and the relationship is something to be cherished. The sense that something is a bit off is well done. It's when we get to the actual villain that this movie goes from an interesting mystery to a demented downhill terror.

Character Development/Writing Quality: Character Development is impressive. Because of the rapidly increasing danger as we get to the middle of the movie, the mom is forced to pull on an inner strength and maternal instinct to protect her family. The two girls, around five and eight, are changed dramatically by what is happening. The writing quality is strong, but it ventures into an eerie place that takes us into an extremely uncomfortable world that mimics movies like Hush, The House of Wax, and The Strangers.

Values: A mother protecting her daughters. An enduring bond between husband and wife.

Content (sex, language & violence): No sex. One use of the F bomb. Violence doesn't take place until halfway in, which is when the whole feel of the movie descends into a very dark and disturbing world where the violence is gruesome and unsettling because it is shown too realistically.

Scare Factor/Suspense: Terrifying when we get to the second half. This is what ruined the movie for me. The villain is a sick sadist who has been waiting many years to torture this family. His actions are graphic, his mask is horribly disturbing, and him putting the lives of two precious girls at stake proves how awful the situation is. There was no need to make things so realistic and bloody--the movie would have fared better had the little girls not been directly involved and had the sicko not been so demented.

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