Shut In (2016)

A widowed child psychologist lives an isolated existence in rural New England. Caught in a deadly winter storm, she must find a way to rescue a young boy before he disappears forever.

Director:

Farren Blackburn

Writer:

Christina Hodson

Stars:

Naomi Watts, Charlie Heaton, Jacob Tremblay

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Naomi Watts	...	Mary
Oliver Platt	...	Dr. Wilson
Charlie Heaton	...	Stephen
Jacob Tremblay	...	Tom
Clémentine Poidatz	...	Lucy
Alex Braunstein	...	Aaron
David Cubitt	...	Doug
Crystal Balint	...	Grace
Ellen David	...	Joan
Tim Post	...	Sheriff
Peter Outerbridge	...	Richard
Anton Chevrier	...	Stephen 5 years old
Thomas Macedo	...	Stephen 9 years old

Storyline

Steven is a troubled kid from Maine being sent to boarding school. While his father, Richard Portman, is driving him there, they get into a bad argument, and the car swerves into oncoming traffic, killing Richard and putting Steven in a vegetative state. Six months later, Richard's second wife and Steven's stepmother, Mary, is taking care of his every need. Mary is a psychologist who works from home with children and adolescents. She is upset to learn that one of her patients, a deaf child named Tom, is to be transferred to a school in Boston. Later, Mary discusses Steven with her therapist, Dr. Wilson. While she feels guilty, she has decided to put Steven in a home to be cared for because he is no longer there and is just a body..

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Plot Keywords:

nightmare | boy | psychologist | single parent | bathtub | 

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Taglines:

Don't believe everything you see

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for terror and some violence/bloody images, nudity, thematic elements and brief strong language

Details

Country:

France Canada USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 November 2016 (USA)

Also Known As:

Shut In

Filming Locations:

Sutton, Québec, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,700,000, 11 November 2016, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$6,883,951, 23 December 2016

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$6,891,009, 29 December 2016

Company Credits

Production Co:

EuropaCorp, Transfilm, Lava Bear Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Italian censorship visa # 111575 delivered on 5 December 2016.

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Goofs

When Mary and Tom are on the boat dock, despite the weather being well below freezing, you can't see their breath.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Doug: Hey. It's going to be okay.
Richard: Just tell me we're doing the right thing.
Doug: No, sweetheart, I know you want to fix this. It's what you do. But we've tried. All right? We've been trying and look where it's gotten us.
[looking over at their son waiting in the car]
Doug: And I think the space is gonna be good for him. For all of us. Besides, it's a good school. He'll be home by the end of the summer.

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Connections

Featured in Half in the Bag: Shut in and Arrival (2016)

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Soundtracks

Hush Little Baby
Traditional
Public Domain

User Reviews

Incoherently Shut In

This review of Shut In is spoiler free

* (1/5)

EVERY ONCE IN a while there will be a horror-thriller with an interesting premise, and for a while this will bode well for the film industry but then disaster strikes. There will be a film released when the thrills take ages to kick in which is interesting if it's done well, even Naomi Watts has been in a few of them Mulholland Drive and The Ring to name a couple.

If it's done horribly nothing bodes well for the film, this shows in director Farren Blackburn's Shut In. Here Blackburn is away from his natural home of directing TV episodes (he's even been tasked for making the first episode of this year's Iron Fist). The film stars Watts as Mary Portman a Child Psychologist who works close to home. She has a good day working with a child until she gets the call that her 18 year-old stepson (Charlie Heaton) has been involved in a head-on collision, and he is paralyzed. She has to take care of his every need, bathe him, feed him and clothe him.

For a while this isolation horror-thriller has an interesting premise, there are even a couple of gorgeous shot of Watts walking through the snow covered wooded environment outside her home. Unfortunately the screenplay written by Christina Hodson is garbage, and at points awkward down to a tee that it makes it hard for its main star to read out the lines. In addition with terrible performances, even at Watts' standards. There is a point in which Mary seeks help from her employer (Oliver Platt), she states that she is seeing a ghost of a child that she takes care for, he then says that ghosts don't exist she's just sleep deprived. It plays on this for quite some time not giving much information or any idea of where the film is heading.

To an extent the film also involves pretentious jump scares, which appear in a theme, of she hears banging goes to investigate and it turns out to be a false alarm, or she is grabbed and scared half-to-death, this sparks a vulnerability theme. There are a lot of those feelings in this. It's not original. At this point there is no hope left for Shut In. Seemingly we wait for what feels like an eternity for something even remotely thrilling to happen, at which point we've had our thousandth yawn. To spark the audience's attention it calls the barricade & hunt style card, last year's The Boy played on that theme too. It doesn't need to be said, but it's fair to say this is a tired - frankly unoriginal, incoherent horror-thriller with nothing interesting going for it, it's just drivel we've seen before.

VERDICT: A tired horror-thriller, with poor performances even by Watts' standards, and garbage screenplay. It'll be better to watch this while sleeping.