It can be tricky to review movies in the modern era. On the one end, there are a lot of movies that are easy to trash because they are lazily copying what more successful movies have done. Especially those trying to tap into nostalgia. Then on the other end, it is easy to praise movies that were doing something original or new. But that leaves a lot of movies in between that take familiar ideas or storylines, injecting their own ideas and details to make it stand out and on its own, but we tend to gloss over them. And I think that is especially true of Horror films. It all comes back to the perception of cliches and tropes. It is common, when giving a negative review of a movie, to mention how it relies on tropes. Truth of the matter is that tropes aren’t inherently bad. You just need to remember to focus on more than just the overall plot and do something with the characters. Add to the familiar to make it unique.

And that is exactly what we have with this movie. Based on a short story by Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son, you can tell what it has in common with other Horror movies as well as some of Stephen King’s own stories. I’m using his books for reference because I admittedly haven’t read any of Joe books. But it still works. A lot of Stephen King stories will have a person (usually a child) that has psychic abilities that have an unknown origin. Sometimes that is paired with another supernatural element at play with an equally mysterious unknown origin. And don’t forget the alcoholic! Yea, in this movie it is the father of the boy who gets kidnapped and his sister who has the psychic abilities. And the villain of the movie is a masked killer which you can find in a whole bunch of other Horror movies.

But as mentioned earlier, this movie stands out because it adds new details and focuses on the actual characters. It would have been so easy for this movie to just have the alcoholic father be mean and have the audience hate him. But through interactions with his daughter we see why he is a bit abusive and why he drinks. We get to learn a bit about their past and what happened. It fleshes him out and makes him seem like a real person. A similar thing can be said for Ethan Hawke as the villain, The Grabber. We don’t really know a lot about him. But as we pay attention to his methodology and the tricks he uses to play with his victims, we can actually piece together what might have made him the way he is. Even some of the things he says when interacting with the main boy – Finney – help clarify what his personality is like and what his mental state must be.

This all connects to various interactions between different characters seen throughout the movie. The way these people talk and act are realistic and authentic. Which is another trait you could connect to other Horror stories, especially those written by Stephen King. How they talk and think through their situations makes the story more engaging. As Finney communicates with the ghosts of the dead kids through the phone, you follow him as he starts planning his escape. The decisions are smart and logical. And because the movie knew to focus on the characters and flesh them out, we root for him and want to see him escape. More often than not, a lot of Horror movies end up making their protagonists stupid and annoying. So when the time comes for them to come face to face with the killer, we actually end up rooting for the killer. If they didn’t want to get killed, maybe they shouldn’t have make so many stupid choices or be such a**holes in general. This movie recognizes that and understands how to make us feel fear for the kid. It knows how to build tensions and suspense.

And this is why this movie is so effective and worth the watch. It is unique because it knows that the characters are most important. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what plot line is used or which tropes are put into the script. Everyone working on this movie was focused on the details to bring the story to life. The details are what make this movie strong. This isn’t another Horror movie simply going through the motions and relaying on similarities to more successful films to get by. A lot of care and heart went into this making of this movie and it shows.