I saw Never Let Go

Director Aja (Piranha 3D/Crawl/The Hills Have Eyes 2006) Alexandre's Never Let Go, rendered from a script by Ryan Grassby and Kevin Coughlin, would be ideal for a double bill with Benjamin Brewer's Arcadian, in that both cater to single parents with two boys and a dog in a rustic setting, on a razor-edged watch for unusual intruders.

In Never Let Go's case, Halle Berry's heedful Mama and her sons, Sam (played by Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (played by Percy Daggs IV), are surrounded by reputed evil. Their sacred cabin is their fort, though Mama gives the boys permission to travel beyond their abode to collect their daily sustenance, but only if they do so with cabin-bound ropes around their waists. This, she says, allows them to stay linked to the purity of ancient wood that comprises their house. 

The situation may sound out of whack, and that's the point, in that it allows Nolan to question Mama's mythological claim. Then again, the trio does seem to detect odd goings-on in the woods, but are they imaginative figments or of explainable circumstance? (Mama also requires her sons to pray and perform a trap-door ritual to ensure their safety, but does such in any way ensure their survival? Maybe, maybe not.)

Never Let Go's need to identify the truth plays straight into The Twilight Zone's socio-psycho installments, and therefore, the fable's emphasis isn't just on potential, demonic activity, but rather the value of faith and trust, and moreover, when to cling to, and when to let go of, a parent's beliefs, as well as one's own. (Some have stated that the story is an allegory for COVID, and I can appreciate the comparison, but it doesn't strike me as the overriding point. In a more obvious way, Never Let Go's mysterious confines are reminiscent of the horror show, From, where scenarios blur between what's real and what's imagined.)   

Not to spoil the ending, but it's in tune with a few others that have accompanied horror-suspense pictures over the past, couple decades, but to name those productions would reveal too much. No matter the catch (and all the suspicions leading up to it), there's enough intrigue in Alexandre's stealthy approach to keep matters gripping. (Credit must also be given to those who designed the cabin's craggy interiors, Maxine Alexandre's smoky photography and Robin Coudert's Robert Cobert-ish score, for they, too, embolden the mounting unease.) As such, Never Let Go demonstrates that it's not so much a story's conclusion that makes it click, but the journey toward it.