Run, and don’t walk, to your nearest cinema: the new ghoulish horror film from M. Night Shyamalan is here. A return to form after the disappointing Glass, Old is a bold, berserk and original film that is one of this year’s best.
Shyamalan, a director who has received an unjust amount of criticism over his work “for not understanding human emotion”, has crafted a film where life’s brevity is extrapolated to one beach, over 24 hours, where you age years in minutes. Imagine watching your parents growing old right in front of you and dying in a matter of hours. What is more terrifying and human than that? And for those criticising the dialogue in this film, it isn’t the most natural, but it works in the film’s favour. It heightens the feeling of unease that permeates throughout the film.
It’s a film by a director who is not afraid to take risks and challenge the status quo. The camera is dynamic, the composition inventive, and the script brilliantly subversive. How people are actively discouraging readers online and in print from seeing this film is beyond me. It’s so rare to find a film sensitive to the human condition that it can bring you to tears yet can terrify you with ease. To not watch this film is an act of disservice to yourself and to a filmmaker who quite simply wants to make films that scare his kids.
“Not afraid to take risks and challenge the status quo.”