I wrote a recent review for The Disappointments Room, a horror thriller starring Kate Beckinsale as a woman who may or may not be experiencing a haunting in her own home. Naomi Watts also did her own version of this story, called Shut In, where she plays a child psychologist who loses her husband in a nasty car accident. Her teenage son, Stephen (played by Charlie Heaton, better known as the older brother from Stranger Things) was also in the car wreck, but he survived--just barely. While Stephen is alive, the accident left him brain dead, needing constant care from Watts’ character all day long.
But the spooky stuff doesn’t happen until one of Watts’ patients, a young boy named Tom (played by Jacob Tremblay, from Room) breaks into her house because he didn’t want to be sent away--yet no sooner does young Tom show up then he abruptly disappears, seemingly into the deep wintry Maine woods, where the boy’s chances of survival are nil. It’s only after Tom is gone after several days and presumed dead that Watts starts hearing strange sounds in her house at night. Has little Tom returned after all, only in ghostly form?
Shut In was directed by Farren Blackburn, who did a lot of TV work, including a couple of Daredevil episodes (he also did an episode of the execrable Iron Fist, but we’ll cut him some slack for that). He directs Shut In with an assured hand from the get-go, producing an enjoyable little thriller that reminds me in a good way of Dead Of Winter, another well-done thriller from the 1980s with Mary Steenburgen that was also set against a snowy winter backdrop. Blackburn does a good job at recreating the sensation of being snowbound in your own house, and then adds the unsettling notion of something going seriously wrong on top of the snowstorm.
Naomi Watts gives a sturdy performance as a psychologist who begins to doubt her own sanity; she creditably rises to the occasion without turning into a superwoman. Shoving your fear aside is easier said than done, and being fearful of a situation while still fighting on only makes a person even braver in my opinion. Watts does a great job at creating this type of subdued hero. While Shut In isn’t an Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, it’s still a competent enough chiller that does a good job at creating a creepy atmosphere with a likeable main character. --SF
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