Deep in the secluded woods lives a mother (Halle Berry) and her two twin boys, Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV).  The tight-knit family spends their days foraging through the forest, but never staying too far from home or each other as they are bound by rope; not out of a fear of being lost, but out of fear of being touched by a great evil (Stephanie Lavigne) that lurks through the trees.  The house offers them protection, but the evil is cunning, and soon finds an opportunity to turn the family against each other and destroy their sanctuary. 

Alexandre Aja directs Never Let Go, a distant cousin of folk horror written by Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby.  Lionsgate released the 101-minute thriller shortly after its debut at Fantasticfest, opening it on over 2.6k screens. This specific brand of survivalist apocalypse is experiencing something of a heyday in the current market – see, Arcadian (2024) from earlier this year that offers a remarkably similar structure and tone – possibly as filmmakers are grappling with the inevitable turning over of the reigns by government leaders who are beginning to age out of their seats after a career of stripping away regulations and leaving this new generation to pick up the pieces of the shattered world and try to not only make sense of it but to be able to thrive in it. Needless to say, this is a much bleaker outlook than the new age, serialized transformation that guided the horror genre in the late aughts and early teens.

With little to hide behind, the cast – especially the two young boys – really excel in their roles and sell this ambiguous and constantly morphing concept.  The script does a decent job at striking the balance of keeping enough of the evil hidden from view, while still showing us enough to convince that there is something sinister and deadly stalking the woods.  That being said, the front half of this film is a slow burn and it does threaten to alienate the audience in its stagnancy.  It is not that nothing happens in the first half, but that Aja is much more interested in setting the tone than progressing the narrative.  It pays off because he does establish some incredible atmosphere – along with Production Designer Jeremy Stanbridge – as he doles out bits and pieces of what is actually at play here.  The drip is just a touch over-labored, but we never feel like we are falling too far behind the knowledge of the characters, and even more importantly, we also never feel like they are holding our hand through the exposition.  Coughlin and Grassby really find a good path into this world, asking natural questions with believable inquisitiveness, and questioning the rules in ways that make sense. 

What could possibly frustrate the audience is the pivot the narrative takes from standard monster fare to something a little more philosophical.  The importance of the evil takes on a drastic new meaning, but the finer aspects of the lore are left unexplained as Never Let Go begins to adopt the tone of something like a religious parable.  The second half of the narrative starts with tragedy as the mother, the teacher of the way of survival against the evil, is betrayed by one of the boys, leading to her death.  Left to their own devices, Samuel and Nolan are at odds, and with the body count of the film at one, it seems like they are on their own Cain and Abel arc at times, but the film is much more committed to examining the longevity of a belief after the central disciple has passed. 

Samuel had always been more in tune with his mother’s warning about the evil, the protections that their father had blessed the house with, and the rituals and prayers required to keep them safe.  Nolan, however, had his doubts because part of the lore is that only those touched by the evil can see the evil and because they had been kept safe by their mother, the boys must blindly believe in what she is telling them.  Their faith is put to the test at the arrival of a traveling stranger who has answered Nolan’s calls for help after the passing of the mother.  Samuel, however, does not see the man as a benevolent hiker, and with his mother’s crossbow, he shoots the man in the chest.  This drastic intensification of the drama really catapults the film into a whole new level of psychological thriller where the script and the film are strongest.   

Even more so beyond when their mother was alive and we saw a creature on the hunt, we now have no idea if what we are seeing is real or imaginary. Again, this can be a frustrating pattern for audience members not on board with what Aja has been building towards, but this intensification is the shot of adrenaline needed to make up for the more metered first half. Without that emptiness in the beginning, we would not have these echoes that reverberate and echo across the ending. The ambiguity is the point, and the tension is meticulously wound so that we are absolutely convinced that both conflicting ideals are true at the same time which creates a profoundly upsetting paradox as we reconcile what we have just seen and the implications of what the evil has done and what the evil latent in us has done. 

Never Let Go is an unassuming title from Aja et al., that delivers a deeply unsettling tale, even if it takes its time getting there and does seem at times a little afraid of the genie it has released and tries to backpedal by leaning on more traditional horror tropes in the finale.  Crafted with some Shyamalan tendencies in mind, the film remains at its best when it digs into more of the philosophy that it may or may not have intentionally set up.  It probes that eternal question around the duality of man through the two brothers – notably, twins – but for as unsettling and dark as elements of the plot are, the film does seem to lack the deeper introspection that it primes itself for.  Even those not watching the film looking for a message will find that it rings just a little hollow when all is said and done due to this hesitation on the page.  That being said, it is still a thrilling work of woodland horror, lifted by a trio of great performances, an atmosphere heavy with the wet smell of moss, and the shadows of dread that can only be cast as the sun filters down through the leaves of the trees.