phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2021

Old



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 48min
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre Tags: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Plot Summary: A vacationing family discovers that the secluded beach where they're relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: A goofy premise is saved by the craziest cinematography. Claustrophobic closeups, sweeping 360-degree wide shots, and framing that pushes everything you want to look at to the side. I wanted to dislike this, because the character motivation and dialogue are a bit stilted (a rapper named Midsized Sedan, really?), but even that weirdness fit into the bonkers style of the whole thing. The technical filmmaking skills on display won me over, unnecessary plot-twisty ending and all.


Outside Reviews:

Brian Tallerico
2.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

A director who often veers right when he should arguably go left, Shyamalan and his collaborators manage their tone here better than he has in years. Yes, the dialogue is clunky and almost entirely expositional regarding their plight and attempts to escape it, but that’s a feature, not a bug. “Old” should have an exaggerated, surreal tone and Shyamalan mostly keeps that in place, assisted greatly by some of the best work yet by his regular cinematographer Mike Gioulakis. The pair are constantly playing with perception and forced POV, fluidly gliding their camera up and down the beach as if it’s rushing to catch up with all the developments as they happen. Some of the framing here is inspired, catching a corner of a character’s head before revealing they’re now being played by a new actor. It’s as visually vibrant a film as Shyamalan has made in years, at its best when it's embracing its insanity. The waves are so loud and the rock wall is so imposing that they almost feel like characters.


A.A. Dowd
Grade: B - What a drag it is getting Old in M. Night Shyamalan’s spooky new thriller

Visually, it’s a tour de force, even by the standards of a director who finds inventive angles on the action in nearly all his movies, from the grand ones to the silly ones to the grandly silly ones. The camera spins and lurks and looms, enhancing the seasick disorientation. This is the third film Shyamalan has made with Mike Gioulakis, who shot his Split and Glass. Is there a cinematographer today who mines more menace from composition alone? Gioulakis sometimes keeps the threat hovering just below or beyond the frame, teasing us with what’s unseen. He understands his role in guiding (and limiting) an audience’s perspective—a key tenet of Shyamalan’s work, heavy on misdirection and delayed reveals.