Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Don’t Move is a surprisingly tight and tense thriller that knows the story it wants to tell and keeps its focus. The result is a highly stressful viewing that keeps you calculating the odds in anticipation of escape from our heroine who spends a large portion of the movie paralyzed.
Directed by Brian Netto and Adam Schindler
Written by T.J. Simfel and David White
The difficulty in reviewing a film like Don’t Move is the basic premise is a spoiler, and this movie has a key hinge moment that drives the entire film which should be kept in the dark. With that, here is the rough outline of the story:
A grieving mother, who before she can commit suicide over her loss, is captured in the woods and is paralyzed by a charismatic and methodical serial killer.
I will now offer up a quick recommendation, and that if the outline specifications of the story gets you interested, go watch it, and then come back for some analysis of the film. It is a simple well structured thriller that will have you holding your breath.
Minor spoilers ahead! Beware to those who like the surprises.
The Cast of Don’t Move
- Kelsey Asbille plays Iris, a grieving mother who has returned to the place of her son’s accidental fall and demise to follow him into the abyss.
- Finn Wittrock plays Richard, who also has suffered a tragic loss, and has a very different method of handling his loss.
- Moray Treadwell plays Bill, a big, observant, and elderly man living in a cabin in the forest. He settles issues with his fists.
- Daniel Francis plays Dontrell, a sheriff investigating reports of a disturbance the forest within his jurisdiction.
A Short Synopsis of Don’t Move:
After a restless night of sleep, Iris heads to the forest park memorial where her son Mateo fell over a cliff to his death. Her trauma has brought her back to the spot where she intends to leap to her death to join Mateo. Richard arrives on the scene before she is able to commit suicide. He is a handsome man, and charming. Richard shares that he too had a tragedy befall him when his wife died in a car accident. He shares his story so that she will back away from the edge.
Iris: The world takes what it wants. I wish that it had taken me instead. The part that I hate the most is that I haven’t been able to cry. I want to, but I’m broken.
Richard: Broken doesn’t have to mean hopeless”
And, with that infusion of optimism, Iris follows Richard back down the mountain to the parking lot. Rather than a comforting embrace of goodwill, Richard stuns Iris with a tazer and follows with an anesthetic injection that will render Iris immobile and unable to speak. Richard has done this before. He’s a charismatic serial killer, who has used this routine on other women before.
Iris fights her way to her feet, fleeing into the forest. She evades Richard, but the drugs are taking effect. In a desperate move, she flings herself into a nearby rapid river. She has enough strength and coordination remaining that she hauls herself out of an eddy and onto land where she crawls forward into a meadow. Bill, a rough but compassionate man, finds Iris washed ashore on his property. When questioned, she is only able to blink to yes and no commands. Bill then places Iris into a wheelbarrow and gets her into his cabin. Iris cannot tell Bill the full story, and Richard cannot be too far behind.
Richard is clever, sadistic, and persuasive. What will happen if Richard finds her? Will Bill be able to figure out what is going on? It’s thriller time!
Evaluation of Don’t Move:
I didn’t think much about this made-for-Netflix offering. The trailer had me curious though. I involuntarily twitched and flexed my fingers in nervous and vicarious channeling motions to get Iris moving. The plot has a timing mechanism that works in two directions. First, when she is initially drugged, we know that she has 20 minutes before she is rendered limp. We are then unsure how long this drug will last, and how long it will take to wear off. Overlaid on top of that condition is the question, when do you make your move, if you are Iris?
That key factor fills up a deep anxiety well for the audience. Just how much sensation has she gotten back? You will find yourselves thinking “Do it! Do it now! Now is your chance!” It’s a wonderful plotting device. The writing, directing, and editing team earn merit badges for this.
All of this wouldn’t matter if you didn’t care about the characters. The small cast performs very well together. I enjoyed watching Moray Treadwell. Bill pieces together an incomplete puzzle with a highly unreliable narrator in Richard, and he senses it. Finn Wittrock is a fantastic villain. He’s a quick thinker and can cleverly create an instant narrative, but I appreciate that when Richard is questioned aggressively, he runs out of alibi runway. Lastly, Kelsey Asbille performs both great physical and emotional character arcs.
This is a smart film. The plot injects agitating story elements at just the right time. There aren’t many large logic gaps, though Richard does get a bit sloppy during the home stretch. Richard’s backstory could use some clarity. Has he always been mad? Was he telling the truth about his accident? How did he manage to target Iris? Those questions don’t derail what is otherwise a watertight thriller.
Conclusion:
Don’t Move is one of Netflix’s better original horror offerings, though it would be fair to call this horror adjacent. Iris is a sympathetic protagonist who is easy to root for. I expect greater things from both Asbille and Wittrock in the future. (Asbille arrives with some Yellowstone TV momentum as well.)
The movie has hold-your-breath intensity and has some savagely violent moments. It surprised me how bloody it got. It earned its R-rating. This is a great movie for thriller fans, but if intense moments make you freak out, take caution. This movie loads up with stressful scenes. The enjoyment is seeing how the characters navigate these moments.
Don’t Move is a Netflix-exclusive film.