"You Should Have Left" is a Familiar, but Fun Haunted House Thriller
58/100 “sour”
By: Keaton Marcus
David Koepp is back in the director's chair with his new horror-thriller You Should Have Left starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried. To be frank, I was disappointed in this movie...From the look of the trailer and the premise, it could have been another smashing success for Blumhouse. However, what remains is an entertaining, but only mildly scary affair. Some intriguing ideas hint at a genuinely terrifying experience, but Koepp never truly delves into them enough. The screenplay doesn't quite make a consistent whole either however viewers looking for some good fun will find much to offer. The thing is...the scares take too long to really set in, audiences will have to wait about 50 minutes for any real tension to arise. To be very honest, this movie would have worked more as a drama than a horror movie, with more emotional elements than scares. It's really a hit-or-miss, and it will certainly test audiences' patience.
The movie is about a screenwriter named Theo Conroy (Kevin Bacon), haunted by his past and now married to the much-younger actress Susanna (Amanda Seyfried) with their child Ella (Avery Essex). When they both realize that their relationship is bursting by the seams, Theo decides to take them to a gorgeous remote home in England, only to find that nothing is as it seems. It's definitely an intriguing premise, and it constantly dives into the haunted house genre, but it's disappointing that the movie doesn't use its full potential. Hopefully, however, you will forgive its cheap scares with some solid performances and appropriately isolated setting.
As mentioned, Kevin Bacon heads the cast as a troubled father and screenwriter with his mysterious past (no spoilers) catching up with him as he goes to the seemingly innocent home. This is actually a reunion of sorts between director David Koepp and Bacon, who worked together in Stir of Echoes, a well-received movie. Bacon is also exceptionally good in this film, naturally talented as usual. In both the emotionally-fueled scenes and the spooky ones, he is excellent, which doesn't happen frequently. His co-star, Amanda Seyfried, isn't as good but has her moments. While both actors are doing a solid job, I'm just not as interested in the characters as I should be, and I didn't really care for them towards the end. Their personalities are a tad stale even though Bacon and Seyfried act well together.
David Koepp has had a mixed bag of a career, with some ups, downs, in-betweens. Basically, he's all over the place, and a bit of a gamble to hire as a director or screenwriter. He became famous for writing Steven Spielberg classic Jurassic Park and is also known for working on Mission: Impossible, The Lost World, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, Panic Room, and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Despite all those terrific flicks, he's been on a bit of a slump lately. He recently wrote the atrocious Inferno, plus Tom Cruise's awful The Mummy remake and Mortdecai. Ouch. While his direction and writing aren't as fresh as some of his older movies, I would consider it a welcome return to his horror roots. Nobody said this movie was going to be The Shining, but it's a familiar, yet enjoyable and disposable piece of yarn.
The final opinion is: You Should Have Left doesn't have enough good jumps, and it takes too long to set-up, but Kevin Bacon's lead performance and some fun make it decent enough...$TREAM IT
