- Directed by Natasha Kermani
- Written by Brea Grant
- Stars Brea Grant, Leith M. Burke, Dhruv Uday Singh
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes
- Link: https://amzn.to/2XpcbxP
Synopsis
May is a business author who hasn’t had much luck with her current book. She goes home, breaks a dinner plate, has ice cream with her husband Ted and finds a strange thing stuck in her finger. It’s a normal day for her.
That night, she hears something downstairs and goes to investigate. She sees a man outside wearing a mask, and she yells for Ted. When she turns around, he’s gone. Ted wakes up and says, “Honey, that’s the man who comes every night and tries to kill us.”
They hear the man break in downstairs. “Better hope he doesn’t have any good weapons tonight. Come on, we need to fight for our lives now,” Ted says as he picks up a golf club. They bash the guy with the club, and he sort of just vanishes. When the police arrive, Ted acts like it was no big deal.
The next morning, they both remember it; it really happened; the window is still broken. Ted says it was all very real. May asks Ted to explain everything to her, and he seems surprised that she doesn’t remember. “Every night a man comes to our house and tries to kill us.” Later that day, she boards up the broken window.
It gets dark, and Ted hasn’t come home yet. May grabs the golf club and goes upstairs. She hears sounds downstairs and goes to investigate. The Man has returned. She whacks him, but that doesn’t stop him this time. She pushes him over the railing, and vanishes before she can call 911.
The detective seems more interested in Ted’s whereabouts than details about The Man. May talks to Ted’s sister; they’ve had fights before. That afternoon, May goes to the hardware store and buys everything she needs for a “Home Alone” re-enactment and waits for night to fall. He comes again, and this time, she stabs him and shoots him with mace; once again, he vanishes.
Next morning, Sarah offers to let May stay at her place, but May refuses to be scared out of her own house. She kills the guy in the daytime next, and he vanishes, leaving a blood stain behind. The next day, she kills him again, and once again, he simply vanishes.
The next night, she’s had enough. “What do you want from me?” She confronts him and gives him a piece of her mind before chasing her outside to the police car that’s waiting out there. Before long, the police send a social worker to talk with May. The social worker is also more interested in Ted than anything else. It’s clear that no one believes May anymore.
May goes to stay with Sarah. May notices that Sarah has a big scar on her back that she doesn’t want to talk about. “I forget,” she says and then acts weird about it. The Man comes and stabs Sarah. May and The Man knock each other out. This time, Detective Pace knows things that she didn’t tell him.
She finally talks to her assistant, Edie, in the parking garage, and finds that she has her own lunatic to repeatedly kill. Apparently, there are numerous women fighting lunatics in there. May finally figures out that this is her life now. The Man appears and kills Edie, and the chase in the parking garage is on.
Ted appears and says none of it really matters. They hold hands and go inside the house. The Man comes up and stabs Ted in the back. Finally, she stabs him and takes his mask off… And it’s every man who ever lived, because men suck.
Commentary
It keeps you guessing right up to the end. It’s well acted, well-directed, interesting to watch, and is completely impossible to guess.
There’s definitely a “girl power” vibe to all this that become more and more overbearing as the film progresses. Women are attacked daily and it’s a regular part of their lives. May needs to “Go it alone” and “women are weak and defenseless” ideas are scattered throughout. And then there’s that ending.
The message is valid, but this movie is a turd sandwich.