If you take a proven director with plenty of experience – and success – in the horror genre, hand them an eclectic and esteemed ensemble cast, and then launch them into a high concept terror that balances family drama with spooky shenanigans, then the results should justifiably be a damn sight better than 2021’s Separation turned out to be.
William Brent Bell knows frights like the back of his hand having helmed such luminaries as The Devil Inside, The Boy, and Orphan: First Kill to name but three, while the stacked roster numbered Rupert Friend, Mamie Gummer, and everyone’s current favorite curmudgeon Brian Cox, in what came across on paper as a combination between Kramer vs. Kramer and The Conjuring.
Following on from the tragic death of her mother, Cox sues to try and attain custody of his granddaughter, but things take a turn for the terrifying when the puppets created by her artistically-minded father begin to take on a life of their own. Spoiler alert; they were already pretty creepy-looking, so you can imagine how things go from there.
In the end, though, Separation could only muster a dismal seven percent Rotten Tomatoes score, even if its disastrous performance at the box office can at least partially be blamed on COVID. Either way, horror is reliably bulletproof on streaming, so the interminably awful exercise in wasting A-grade parts has made a splash on streaming.
Per FlixPatrol, Separation has ended up as one of the top-viewed titles on Netflix in the early stages of this week, even if it should be saved solely for those who don’t mind their horror flicks being relentlessly and unstoppably uninteresting.
Published: Apr 11, 2023 01:34 am