Set your expectations to non-existent, because here we go again; we’re out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, we’ve met one spooky neighbour and been told about the other – the even spookier one, the one who went missing several years ago – and we’re shacked up in a wooden cabin overlooking a lake for the evening, without the husband who’s been delayed thanks to an important meeting at work. There is so little here you haven’t seen before you’ll need a magnifying glass to find it – and what a terribly bland title, which says nothing and yet says it all. If it’s a Friday night and you’re desperate for something which promises a few jump scares and maybe an attractive lead getting terrorised by someone or something you don’t really care what, and if you’re not really bothered about being fulfilled in any other way either intellectually or emotionally, then this will perhaps find its way somewhere onto your radar.
Yet scratch those expectations. Quinn Lasher’s film starts with that old Babes in the Wood horror movie trope of a small child’s voice reading out an unnecessarily dark children’s rhyme, while panning slowly across a jump forwards to the aftermath of everything you’re about to see during the next hour or so. Two tricks you’ve seen before quite often enough, we’re sure. But the poem is just that little bit more involved and less obvious than we’d usually see, and those pans across crashed cars and blood-dripping weapons are just that little bit more nicely filmed, that little bit more effectively framed. Make no mistake, this is a cheap’n’cheerful slasher with all the gore, all the terror and all the scares you’ll be anticipating, but it’s a little more nicely shot, a little more resonantly scored, a little better performed – including by the two children, sisters in real life – than you’d settle for it being. And for all that this is Lasher’s feature debut, he’s showing a decent grip on the developing tension that fixes you in your seat from about the half-hour mark, and keeps you there almost till the very end.
He’s Out There is essentially a fairytale, albeit a rather bloody one, and in the cold light of day it doesn’t add up to a whole lot of sense. But there are a couple of genuinely disturbing ideas and a bunch of spine-tinglingly suggestive images in there, and Yvonne Strahovski – fresh out of The Handmaid’s Tale – is excellent as the mother left to fend for her family into the night. This isn’t terrifically ambitious, and there aren’t any hidden depths it’ll lead you to, but it’s purposefully made and probably will exceed your expectations after all.
REVIEW: HE’S OUT THERE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: QUINN LASHER / SCREENPLAY: MIKE SCANNELL / STARRING: YVONNE STRAHOVSKI, ANNA PNIOWSKI, ABIGAIL PNIOWSKI, JUSTIN BRUENING / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
