Elijah Wood has excellent taste, from helping to produce mind-bending films like Mandy and Colour Out of Space to voicing Wirt on Over the Garden Wall, post-Hobbitsing, Wood has gone in interesting directions.
Come to Daddy is an off-kilter, suspense thriller that takes full advantage of Elijah looking much younger than his age. Even with Norval’s mustache and bowl cut, he looks like a mid-20s hipster, especially when contrasted with an extremely grizzled looking Stephen McHattie, who radiates pure menace from the first moments of the film.
With a slow build and moments of dream-like violence that come interspersed in long uncanny sequences. The film builds an odd world that seems like a time out of place despite Norval’s name-dropping and the presence of smartphones. Everything works together to create a experience that feels unexpected and specific; showing off a juvenile machismo that haunts the men of the movie and using the unique location, dated set dressings and soundscapes of the house and its isolation in nature to create an ambiance of dread and barely contained brutality.
Even on a second watch, there were still delightful surprises to be found and it was satisfying to see how bits that I missed the first time through connected to and built up the movie's climax. If you can handle a bit of gore, I cannot recommend enough this movie, which at its center, chronicles the dangerously earnest attempts of Norval to connect with his daddy, even if it means he must push past his comfort and perhaps life itself...
5/5 Nightgoers
No comments:
Post a Comment