The Twin

"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.

Flicking through the reviews of other people which are predominantly unfavorable by the way; I do wonder, what were they thinking? I mean, what were they expecting to see? While I understand the amount of frustration they might feel, their all-around cynical outlook, and their perspective in general; yet, I still believe, they had gone a little bit overboard with the criticisms this time.

Yes, the story is convoluted, perhaps, a little bit pretentious too; but the core notion still managed to deliver a compelling narrative (with a significant technical mastership) nonetheless. Now, I saw a lot of people complaining about the nature of the twists (or rather about how too many were there); speaking for myself though, I dug those, they kept me second-guessing up until the very end. And then came the final twist (not gonna spoil it, do not worry); caught me off-guard, I wasn't quite ready for it.

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 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.

First of all, the athmosphere is nice. Teresa Palmer was pretty good as a grieving mother. But the story builds up to a massive let down. They could've skipped the whole Helen crazy woman story, that just feels like a filler afterwards. The kid is annoying, but they usually are in these kind of movies. 5,5/10.