Lyle

There's nothing wrong with another take on the classic Rosemary's Baby story. I know some folks get all precious about these things but it's a brilliant concept for a movie and if you get the characters right, if the building becomes a character in its own right and if you have a decent writer it could be a no-brainer. Here however the writing let us down. Too little happened and the creepy happenings were too trite and too few. The sense of dread was not sustained and the tension was lacking.

Add to this the trendy and becoming hackneyed decision to make the main couple a pair of lesbians of the non-lipstick variety and patience begins to wane. They weren't fun to look at and I'd dare call them Wal-Mart lesbians. The lead character went so far as to eschew makeup and leave her armpits au natural. This is unappealing, unappreciated and wholly unnecessary.

This was a lackluster attempt at horror. It could've and should've been better but production was more concerned with virtue signaling and getting the racial quotas correct that they neglected the end product.

Pretty good little flick, given its runtime of 1hr 2mins. I've seen movies where I wished the opening titles were the closing credits, not the case here.

Performances were a bit uneven, however the lead, Gaby Hoffman was quite good at playing her character Leah.

I can't give much praise for actor director. Ingrid Jungermann, her performance seemed 'stiff' but am curious to see her directorial debut, Women who Kill.

Not sure if this was meant to be psychological or supernatural or if that was the point of it. Being vague. I'm leaning psychological because pregnant women can get kinda kooky lol.

I don't want to make any comparisons or give anything away, but just say that I enjoyed my hour with this flick.

4 generous stars.

This movie masquerades under the guise of woman-driven horror movie, but the reality, as they say, cannot be farther from the truth. This clumsily shot film centers around a main character, a pregnant lesbian woman, who loses her toddler when said toddler falls out a window. She then spirals downward into deepening insanity as she is determined to protect her unborn child from everything and everyone, and everyone, she thinks, is out to get her.

It sounds like a fair premise, but the way it is told is very poorly done. The story is dull, hold no rhythm, and makes no sense. There is no rhyme or reason to her thought process or actions; even insanity must give some kind of twisted reason, but in this movie there is none of that. It tries to go into a five minute introduction to perhaps some kind of supernatural deal with the devil, but without explanation or further study it becomes pointless and confuses the viewer.

As a horror movie, Lyle fails in a spectacular fashion. There are no scares, at all. There are no jump scares, no psychological thrill, and, perhaps worse of all, not even a single tense moment. The boring camera views and bleak colors do nothing to help this movie either.

I am sad I wasted my time viewing this during free time better spent on virtually anything else. I would not give a single dollar to their next movie if this is the best they have to show for their lazy, half-baked efforts.

Leah (Gaby Hoffmann), June (Ingrid Jungermann), and their toddler Lyle move into a Brooklyn brownstone apartment. Leah is pregnant. The landlady lives downstairs and models live upstairs. Leah investigates the building on the internet and finds a series of mysterious deaths.

Of course, this is aiming for Rosemary's Baby. The best aspect is Gaby Hoffmann. She is fully capable in this role. On the other hand, this is very much an indie. It doesn't even have enough material for more than sixty minutes. Filmmaker Stewart Thorndike may have plans for a more expansive horror, but this feels incomplete or unfinished.

A well made film with an obvious plot debt to Rosemary's Baby. I can't say the RB genre is over saturated just yet, so it was still a fun watch.