You Should Have Left (Video On Demand)
Starring Kevin Bacon, Amanda Seyfried
Directed by David Koepp
Rating: **
Once upon a time, Kevin Bacon was a force to reckon with. Remember The River Wild and He said She Said, Wild Things, among others? I don’t know why Bacon’s career derailed. But it is shocking to see him in his new film, a trope-worshipping, devil-may-blare horror saga, limp listless lackluster loser of a horror show with some of the stupidest excuses for a scare I’ve seen on this side of Fright Night.
From its absurdly incongruous background score that is an outright bore to its pompously enigmatic plot which is anything but hot, You Should Have Left tells us exactly what we should do while we still have time. Bolt for the exit. Except that the Covid has automatically transferred this risible horror flick to our homes where we are pinned helplessly to the sofa with nowhere to go.
I normally avoid horror films because there is enough darkness all around. But this time seeing Bacon with the stunning Amanda Seyfried (Meryl Streep’s heavenly daughter in Mama Mia) did the trick. Bacon is at least twice her age, and the script goes to great lengths to justify the pairing. In fact, the marriage, when we meet the couple, is about to collapse.
So Bacon takes his young attractive wife and daughter Ella(Avery Essex) on a holiday to a scenic deserted spot in a town where there is one grocery store run by a chap who seems to know more than we want to know and who says things like, “The Devil has its own plans” and ‘Do not shout at me”.
Soon enough Bacon and the beautiful Ms Seyfried (what is she doing in this fatuous fright fare?) are quarreling about her extra attention to younger men while their wise little daughter, the only silver living in this cloud-fest looks like she would like to kill both her parents and migrate to (Covid-free) New Zealand.
Absurdly after the wife walks out of the spooky holiday home Bacon and his little daughter are left all alone in the big suspiciously spick and span house to deal with a supernatural entity who looks like your kind but avoidably the annoying uncle who drops in unwanted and then stays on while you try to pretend he is not around.
Exasperating and irrelevant You Should Have Left makes me say the same to Kevon Bacon. Please quit, if you have to do this shit.