The Twin

This film will feel very familiar due to an overused theme (grief). If you can somehow get around that...you may enjoy this. Beautifully filmed (CGI cemetery was weird though) and the acting was solid all around. Atmospheric, but not particularly frightening. Not a fast moving film, but no noticeable filler. I can't think of a reason not to recommend this. Might pair nicely with Wake Wood (2009) for a double feature and exercise in contrast and comparison.

"The Twin" is a movie that has a couple of great qualities: the cinematography and its setting. Fully exploited the rural locations of Finland and a house perfectly lit by the crew to make it look gloomy. The performances of the leads are decent, but the performance of Barbara Marten stands out. The big problem with the movie is its script that tries to emulate current horror movies that revolve around psychological thriller and drama embedded in an art film and fails in its entirety. In addition, there are obvious influences from classics like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" but without being able to approach their quality. "The Twin" fails as a psychological horror film and offers nothing but excellent visuals.

The Twin has a handful of corny horror tropes: child loss, new home in the middle of nowhere, pregnancy exploitation, hallucinations, gaslighting, quasi-satanic rituals, folk atmosphere (or, at least, an attempt to create it), et cetera. Too many ingredients for one film, and eventually it's hard even to qualify the results. Is this a psychological drama wrapped in horror? Is this a horror wrapped in psychological drama? Is this a Finnish Midsommar? We wish we knew. Not even Lights Out's Teresa Palmer and the whole exotic setting ("wow, those Finns are so eerie but their nature is so beautiful") can make this ponderous mess work.

My wife and I watched this in Shudder as she's a big Discovery of Witches fan and Teresa Palmer was in this. Unfortunately this was a mash up of several other films, with The Omen, Midsommar and Rosemary's Baby springing to mind, but without being anywhere near as good.

Palmer does a lot of the heavy lifting, and does reasonably well with quite thin material. The reveal was unsatisfactory, with a character basically reading the exposition.

On the whole, added nothing new to the genre.

Can't sleep? Watch this movie. It will knock you right out. How anyone could actually sit through this whole film is beyond me. I got to the hour mark and turned it off. This is definitely not a film I'd recommend. 4 stars.