Set in an isolated house in the woods, twin brothers Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) and Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) live with their momma (Halle Berry) in hiding from a force known as The Evil which has taken everyone else from the world including their father and grandparents. As Momma enforces a strict set of rules such as religious reverence to the house and only leaving the house with a rope attached to your person from the house, a schism develops between the more doubting Nolan and the more faithful Samuel.
Never Let Go is a 2024 horror thriller directed by Alexandre Aja and written by Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby. Originally written under the title Mother Land, the script was acquired by producer Shawn Levy's 21 Laps and Lionsgate Films during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in August of 2020, no doubt due to its limited location and small cast which would make filming easier, but it wouldn't be until June of 2023 that production would actually commence. Never Let Go isn't a poorly made or poorly acted movie, but it's one that feels like it's a victim of being "late to the party" after several other films of a similar nature beat it to release.
In the simplest terms, Never Let Go is basically what happens when you mix A Quiet Place with The Lodge as it has a similar "secluded hideaway with gimmick" premise like A Quiet Place (in this case always having a rope attached to the house) as well as the religious and parental distrust themes of The Lodge. Halle Berry is good playing momma and you can see why she was attracted to the part as it's a very hard edged role where the character is driven by love, fear, distrust and obsession. Despite both Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins feeling a little green in roles that require them to be front and center without much acting support from an extended cast, I think they do okay even if they don't quite meet the benchmarks seen in other comparable genre pieces. My primary sticking point when watching Never Let Go was an inescapable feeling of "haven't I seen this before?" as there's undeniable similarities to the likes of the A Quiet Place series, the Bird Box films, The Silence, Arcadian and several others that fit within this genre of limited location survival horror stories. While there's nothing wrong with revisiting a well traversed template, Never Let Go doesn't really feel like it has much of a spin on it that substantially differentiates it from any of the plethora of examples mentioned. Even with the nature of "The Evil", the movie takes a rather wishy washy approach to the antagonist not really committing to The Evil as a tangible presence or psychological one all the way through to a climax that just left me befuddled with how it decides to "resolve" the conflict. But aside from a rather disappointing payoff, Never Let Go often feels repetitive and like it's looking for reasons to spin its wheels to feature length as it's clear that this was a project written during Covid which is bending over itself to justify keeping itself as limited and small as possible without really having the substance to justify it.
Despite the producers voiced desires to make this a franchise this is most likely a one and done affair as it didn't do all that well at the box office and I doubt many are actually curious to see where this concept goes. This is a movie that definitely suffers from a glut of similar movies to it having preceded it, but it doesn't even really do anything all that good with its concept even when taken on its own and just settles for being well made mediocrity.
