The Ruse

I watched The Ruse (2024) in theaters last night. The story follows a woman desperate for work who lands a recently vacated caretaker position. She soon discovers that the woman she's caring for is far more than she bargained for-and may be connected to the mysterious disappearance of the previous caretaker.

The film is written and directed by Stevan Mena (Malevolence) and stars Veronica Cartwright (Alien), Michael Steger (90210), Madelyn Dundon (Lucky Louie), and Drew Moerlein (Bloodline Killer).

This is a movie that feels uneven in just about every way. Veronica Cartwright delivers a fantastic performance, keeping the film intense, unpredictable, and charged with uncertainty. Her dialogue, mannerisms, and delivery are consistently strong. Unfortunately, Madelyn Dundon's performance is noticeably stiff, often coming across as inauthentic. Her facial expressions and body language frequently don't align with what's happening in the scene, though it's hard to say how much of that stems from her acting versus the writing.

I did enjoy the cinematography-there are some clever uses of black-and-white visuals and well-chosen camera angles that effectively build tension. However, the kill scenes rely on cutaways, which I always find frustrating. That said, the ending is pretty fun and left me wishing the rest of the film had taken more kills along the way.

In conclusion, The Ruse has enough worthwhile elements to hold your attention, but not enough to stand out in the genre. I'd give it a 5.5-6/10 and recommend seeing it once.

I went into this movie only seeing the trailer and it seemed pretty interesting as I do like thrillers and mysteries. Had nothing to do on a Thursday afternoon so thought I'd give it a shot. It seemed promising for the first about 45 minutes to one hour, but the third act fell apart for me. I'm not really giving spoilers here, just wanted to give my opinion of what I thought of the movie and to be honest could've been better. I thought it was just the theater I was in, but reading a review from screen rant I see that there were audio issues in the movie. I don't understand what happened, but mic cutouts and sudden drops in the audio were kind of strange. Also, some of the action scenes felt very low budget and hacky. This movie felt more like a straight to streaming movie and not a movie theater release. They were only three other people with me in the theater and only one showing today so maybe that could've tipped me off. Not great, not the worst I've ever seen just merely OK, a premise that had promise.

Stevan Mena did a phenomenal job with this mystery thriller, at one point I felt like I was watching it adaptation of a Stephen King novel and other points felt like pure old school Hitchcock Presents. It has all the typical tropes of a Hitchcock film with spot on pacing, and shot beautifully. There are a lot of twist and turns, in a unique setting, great tension building throughout the film. Cast was phenomenal, one thing Stevan Mena does well in all his films is find those untapped talents. Watch every single one of these unknown names in this movie, They all have a very bright future out of them.

Well that was enjoyable! I just got done seeing Stevan Mena 's new suspense/thriller, "The Ruse". It reminded me of something that seems to have almost become extinct in today's movies, and something I miss. That being of a slow burn, suspense building story, reminiscent of many of the great films that the legendary Alfred Hitchcock wrote and directed. The movie stars Hitchcock alumni Veronica Cartwright (The Birds), who has been acting in movies since 1958 (67 years!), as an elderly former composer that lives alone, who now suffers from dementia, as well as OCD, and needs a live-in nurse. There is something "off" and a little creepy about her character, Olivia Stone. Cartwright's portrayal is nothing short of her performances in a lot of her other great films (Aliens, Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 1978) Fairly new up and coming actress Madelyn Dundon (in her 3rd film) gives a phenomenal performance as the fill-in live-in nurse after the previous nurse goes "missing". Like other actors that started early in their careers in some of Mena's films and went on to become stars (Alexandra Daddario and Peyton List), I see a similar path for Dundon. I loved the overhead shots of the small town atmosphere surrounded by rivers, of which each individual house seem to have their own character to them (and Olivia's, though beautiful, has a creepy feel to it). The suspenseful music was spot on and set a atmospheric tone and enhanced each scenes.

The Ruse reminded me of an old school thriller. The director didn't spell things out for you, he allowed you to take the ride ! The cinematography was beautiful, the use of lighting was impactful and I really liked the dialogue. Movies , of late are typically rapid fire bantering, not with this . I felt like the writing ( and directing ) gave the actors a chance to sit in their roles and really shine. I'm usually decent at predicting " who Dunn it's", I thought I knew for certain, but I was wrong😳! I love that the movie tricked me , it's been a while since that's happened . Im not new to Stevan Mena's work, been a fan for a while and he outdid himself ! Superb job by all involved . Made a rainy day at the movies very well worth it !