Rex Reed: 'Never Let Go' is 'a stupid, time-wasting horror film'

A state of desperate deprivation, indicative of the lack of imagination found in most films today and preventing decent performers from doing their usual work with pride, is seriously damaging many otherwise admirable careers. Oscar winner Halle Berry is one of the most undeserving victims of the mediocrity that is rampant on screens from coast to coast. Their last few flops disappeared overnight and a stupid, time-wasting horror film is called Never let go could disappear even faster.

Confusing and indecisive from start to finish, the film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a paranoid mother (Halle Berry, stripped of her usual glamor and beauty) lives with her twin sons in a remote cabin in the woods and spends every hour protecting them from them a mysterious evil presence lurking outside. As long as they stay indoors, behind closed doors or tying their bodies to the house with ropes, they are safe. But if they ask too many questions or stray too far, all hell threatens to break loose.

Unfortunately, the film is so relentlessly dull that questions are unavoidable. What's going on here? Why do they even live in the middle of a dark and murky forest and not somewhere closer to the remnants of civilization? And what is the evil spell that threatens them with physical and psychological danger every day and especially after dark? Never let go It never manages to adequately answer any of the recurring questions, and the film makes no more sense than one of those M. Night Shyamalan head-scratchers that it annoyingly resembles. The search for any meaning is a waste of time and energy, aside from hints at themes like parenthood and survival in a dystopian future, but the script is uninspired, the third act resolution is incomprehensible, there are too many contrived surprises and twists, to keep them The audience is awake, and although Halle Berry and the two children Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins are struggling with what they have, the performances seem to be calling. French director Alexandre Aja also directed the film The hills have eyes, This was one of the scariest and most uncompromising horror films of all time, and Piranha 3D, which was not. This time he's come up with nothing more than a weak time-waster for people looking for a quick Halloween distraction.