User Reviews

Despite the mostly negative reviews this movie has gotten, I still wanted to see it. Anybody who feels that way, please keep in mind that it's more of a thriller/suspense than a horror movie. The puppet, clown looking thing does put some supernatural horror into the plot but it's not what you think. I enjoyed it and I would definitely give it a try when it's on one of your subscription channels for free.

That's it, the title.

But as required I'll write a little more. Lazy editing, lazy writing, bad acting, poor research in basic aspects of human interaction and police procedures.

Just save you money and time.

Jeff and Maggie are a young couple having problems. Jeff is a former comic book writer who has been unable to duplicate his success leaving Maggie to support the family. Maggie, feeling frustrated with the marriage, decides to leave Jeff and take their young daughter Jenny with her.

Maggie isn't a nice person so her unexpected fate doesn't cause much sadness for the audience. Soon after, Jeff's convenient life size creations of his creepy comic book characters begin to come to life. At first in dreams and then in a seeming reality. Something also seems to be communicating with Jenny as she begins to space out and regresses to talking like a baby.

Sound good so far? Don't get your hopes up. The film has the setup for a great horror film. Unfortunately it never delivers as it fails to ever build any real tension. It just meanders. Rupert Friend is quite one note as Jeff. The part calls for more acting range and Friend just doesn't deliver. The whole film is also lit too darkly and at times I wanted to just close my eyes and nap.

Oh but that creepy clown. Think Linda Blair in The Exorcist doing the spider walk and you'll have an idea. If only it was in a better movie.

This is a movie that I'll be honest; I didn't hear anything about and only learned of it looking at the local listings at the movie theaters around me. I saw this was horror and that it featured Rupert Friend as well as Brian Cox. I do enjoy both of these actors. I was in to see it after that and then saw some people on social media bringing it up. To get into this, the synopsis is a young girl finds solace in her artist father and the ghost haunting their house.

I will admit that there was a bit of a spoiler that I didn't like in the synopsis on the Internet Movie Database, so I did change it a bit. We start this off though with Jeff (Friend) who is a struggling artist. It appears that back in the day, he created a comic book line of some creepy looking characters that have a lot of basis in puppets. Due to some differences, it didn't have as much success and died out. He is now unemployed. This caused his wife of Maggie (Mamie Gummer) to have to go work for her father to make ends meet. This also causes strife at home. What is interesting here is that she hired a babysitter of Samantha (Madeline Brewer) who is into comics and taking more of a liking to Jeff than watching the daughter of Jenny (Violet McGraw). Things come to a head when Maggie comes home right as Jenny falls in the attic, hitting her head. This causes Maggie to leave with Jenny.

The stress of their situation is too much for Maggie. She seeks out the aid of her father, Rivers (Cox), who is a lawyer. Maggie wants a divorce and Jeff's situation puts him at a disadvantage. He cannot afford to fight her as she wants full custody of Jenny and looking to move to Seattle for work. Jeff thinks things are looking up when he runs into a college friend of Connor (Eric T. Miller) at a coffee shop when he has time with Jenny. Connor runs his own comic book label. Jeff is at the wrong place for to meet with Maggie, which was a good to reinforce that he doesn't always listen. Things take a turn when Maggie is killed in a hit and run accident.

Jeff, who is established as a bit of a flake, now has to fully take care of their daughter. His problems aren't solved though. Rivers is now seeking custody of Jenny, who is struggling to deal with the death of her mother. To make matters worse, there could be an entity haunting the house, taking on a similar look to the creatures Jeff created in his comics. Is there really something here or a more logical explanation to everything?

I feel that is enough to get you up to speed with the story of this movie. Where I want to start is I really enjoyed the set up. We establish this family and everything we really need to know with them. Jeff is wrapped up in himself. He is clinging to the past and now that he's older, he is lost. I could tell that Samantha was into him and Maggie just feels like a tired woman who is just done with everything. The real victim in all of this is Jenny. I feel this is actually an interesting story in that Jeff loves her and will do whatever he can for her, but he still needs to mature. Maggie doesn't believe he ever will and she works too much so she isn't around. Samantha also sees this as an in as well. What is interesting is that this is a classic broken home before the separation and potential divorce, which makes what I will go into next more feasible, the haunting.

What I find intriguing is the introduction of the elements from Jeff's original comic book line before we get the haunting. The toys are puppet based and I'll be honest, creepy to me. I like that Jenny has grown up with them, so it doesn't bother her. This is an interesting correlation for myself as well as many horror fans that have grown up with the genre so we don't see it like those that aren't as familiar do. This also allows an interesting scene with Jeff wanting Jenny to 'befriend' the scary monster that is bothering her. It leads down a path though that causes problems.

To actually get to the haunting now, I like that they don't actually start until what happens to Maggie. It is also a gradual thing as well. First it is starting with a painting mysteriously burning where it is only affecting Jeff's face. It then progresses, which is good for a movie like this. We need that slow build. I've said that I like incorporating Jeff's comic book characters into it, as that's feels like what they were made for. This actually seems to have a gothic feel as well. The ghost might not be all that bad. It isn't trying to hurt Jenny, but it wants to hurt Jeff and others. I enjoy it as we normally think the supernatural element these days is the villain, when in the early days of the ghost story, it was more of a guiding force to the truth.

I do have to shift over to a negative here though. As I said that I did like the slow build with the haunting, this movie runs too long. There is a bit too much that I didn't care about that was given to us. Looking back on quite a bit of it, I understand why. We needed to establish certain things so it makes sense later. There was just a long stretch where I lost my interest. I also don't know if the payoff was enough for me with the journey the movie was trying to take me on. There is also the use of a couple dream sequences that I disliked. It was done for scares and adds really nothing to the overall product in my opinion.

To get back to positives, I will go to the acting. It was interesting to see Friend here as our lead, since I know him originally from the TV show Homeland. He was one of my favorite characters there, so it is interesting to see him in a different role here. I thought he worked as this struggling father. Cox is always great as his ruthless older father-in-law. Brewer was interesting as I predicted her interest in Jeff from the opening scene. I thought she did well for where her character ended up. For me though, I had guessed it when something gets brought up and I was checked out by then. Aside from that, I thought Gummer was good as the overworked, tired mother along with McGraw as the daughter. Miller plays a character I enjoyed and I also like Simon Quarterman as Alan who is our supernatural 'expert'. The cast is solid overall in my opinion.

Then really the last thing I wanted to go into would be the effects. First I have to give credit to this guy who took on one of the puppet characters in humanish form. That was an image I saw before seeing the movie and it was creepy. There is CGI there to enhance, but it was probably the scariest part of the movie for me. I'd say from there that all of the practical effects were good. The CGI I can be forgiving for. Being that there is a comic book element to the movie, there is this effect that is done where the world will go red and it makes sense at the climax. I really thought the effects were pretty well done overall and the cinematography was solid as well.

So then in conclusion here, I thought this movie has an interesting set up. The modern gothic take on the ghost story is something that when done right works. Incorporating the comic book elements as well is interesting. There is a bit lacking with the story though and it runs too long for me. What I will say though is the acting and the effects were pretty solid. The soundtrack fit for what was needed, I had no issues there. This movie though just seemed to miss the mark for me a bit. I'd still say this is over average for me.

I don't remember the film, but YEARS AGO a supernatural human like creature walked upside down contorted. It was cool and scary. All these years later, it's HACK. Along with every other unoriginal wanna-be scary part in this snore fest.

It was 21 minutes before anything happened, and that was an auto accident. Then it was another 20 minutes of sheer boredom before the next yawn filled scare.

If you took the "who committed the hit and run?" and made that the focus of the film, it might have had a little more entertainment value. I believe it was this snippet of the story that got this trash made.

If you like horror films, don't watch this. Unless you're tired and can't get to sleep. This will work like a tranquilizer.

Ever since I saw the trailer to this movie, I've wanted to see it. It came out April 30th and I've waited and waited and nothing. Finally found it on one of those sketchy 4k movie websites on Cam only. My wife and I jumped at it. The whole movie was pretty much a custody battle in this life and the afterlife because the mother gets run down by hit and run, screaming through her phone at her soon to be ex-husband, right before she's run down, that he'll never see her again. Even in death, she wants her daughter and haunts the brownstone to get her back. Sure, there were some jump scares here and there, but I found it to be an exhausting supernatural lifetime movie with a who-killed-the-mom-at-the-end twist, which I guarantee you will see coming. I hate to be disappointed at a movie I was so eager to see. Watch it if you want...don't say I didn't warn you. Peace.

Potential to be a great trauma survivor story, mending the bond between a father and his daughter. Ooooh but lets add some random horror elements with no build up?! I didnt understand this movie.

My guess on the plot?- mom came back as an evil entity, masked as her child's toys, because she was mad at her dead beat ex husband????

I wanted to write a review to say that Separation isn't a bad movie. Or rather, it's a little bad but also misunderstood. The core of the problem with the movie is an inexplicably misogynist attitude towards the wife. The movie is trying to portray her as crazy and goes just a little too far so you think after she dies she's some sort of malevolent spirit, when that turns out to be only party true.

Before I say anything else, Brian Cox does a great job. It's a pretty underwritten part and he's expected to turn from wanting to see the main character behind bars to remorseful grandpa very quickly and the range of emotion he gives us with not a lot of material is just real pro stuff. He understands when it's a drama and when it's a horror and is always on point.

That's the crux of the movie's problem is that it's mostly a serious drama about a troubled single father, a cartoonist who has to find a real job to support his child and be the adult he never learned to be. It's worth noting the main character never raises his voice, never criticizes his child, never says a bad word about his wife. The movie wants to make him the put upon martyr and the actor does a good job, but it almost seems like someone is telling the story of their own divorce. And of course THEY come off as a saint and the other person the devil himself. The movie just has this self- satisfied righteousness that he's a sensitive artist and therefore valuable and to be cherished. It just doesn't his that tone and we're left with an obviously incompetent man refusing help in raising a child, which kind of makes him less sympathetic.

There's a sense of technical skill to it though. Cinematography is generally pretty nice, the horror scenes and unique with interesting makeup and designs, and the music sounds ok. It's just over a hundred minutes and pads that time with long quiet scenes of father and daughter talking about stuff, and him talkin about work, and his ex-wife... And it's like, what is this a Lifetime movie? And then a spooky witch shows up and the movie is Insidious for a second. It could have been ten minutes shorter (at least!).

And lastly, the babysitter. If he's interested, then he should not be paying this girl falling over herself to constantly flirt with him. He's so dumb. And after she kisses him, he acts like nothing happened. You're her boss! He needs a mommy around him all the time and it seems disrespectful to just act like she isn't doing what she's obviously trying to do. So when the end comes, I'm like, this is all YOUR FAULT to him.

One thing about the ending, the spooky clown guy I think is some kind of previous ghost that when the wife died somehow helped her manifest herself. So there's some kind of Insidious-esque universe at play that it's setting up.

The thing is, with this movie I meant to leave it on in the background but I found myself sitting up watching it a few times. If they'd cut ten minutes and given the actresses some different takes that don't make them look as crazy as Judge Doom dipping those shoes in the dip, it might be a decent sleeper. But sometimes it looks like the editor did a bunch of fancy angles and tints on the monster scenes and called it a day.

Anyway, your call, slow moving, inexplicably wife hating, drama about a sad sack widowed cartoonist struggles to ink for a living while him and his daughter are haunted by a spooky owl witch woman and some kind of... contortionist? If that sounds like a reasonable Saturday afternoon than you could do worse.

Jeff (Rupert Friend) and Maggie (Mamie Gummer) are in the middle of a bitter divorce and custody battle over their daughter Jenny (Violet McGraw). She also doesn't like the babysitter (Madeline Brewer). Maggie has daddy's (Brian Cox) money on her side. While Maggie is walking and talking on the phone at the same time she is smacked by a vehicle and killed. Apparently I am not the only person who has a disdain for folks who have a phone growing out of their ear. Jeff draws dark haunting comics for a living and now has issues with a haunting of his own.

I liked this story as you got to know all the characters. Jeff, who was his own worst enemy, now makes sacrifices for his daughter. But the ghost is dark and haunts everyone in the house.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.