Major spoilers ahead for Don’t Move. You’ve been warned.
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Gimmicks are extremely popular in the horror genre. Think of the Quiet Place (2018) series, where sound equals death. Or Birdbox (2018), where seeing equals death. Or Lights Out (2016), where the evil spirit could only move in the dark. Gimmicks are easy to come up with, make for instant plot complications and help flicks stand out in the marketing department. Don’t Move hopes to cash in on another gimmick, a countdown to paralysis. But does a gimmick really make for a better story? Read on to find out.
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Don’t Move begins with a woman named Iris (Kelsey Asbille), lying in bed staring up at the ceiling while her husband sleeps. She seems frozen until she turns to look at a toy boat sitting on her nightstand. She quietly gets dressed and leaves the house, making sure to grab a Swiss Army knife on her way out, but she doesn’t take her phone.
Iris drives along the California coast to a national park in Big Sur. She hikes up to a secluded overlook, where there’s a makeshift memorial by a tree – for her son. She carves their initials into the tree and then walks to the edge of the rocks, ready to jump.
But then suddenly a man shows up, introducing himself as Richard (Finn Wittrock). He can tell what Iris is doing and tries to distract her, telling her a story about how he got into a car crash with his wife Chloe, who died. His pleasant, kind – if insistent – manner gets Iris to open up a little, and she tells him her name and what happened.
Iris and her husband were distracted when their son, Mateo, fell from that same overlook. “The world takes what it wants,” she says – and that as much as she wants to, she hasn’t been able to cry. “I’m broken,” she says. “Broken doesn’t have to mean hopeless,” Richard offers before he leaves.
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Iris ends up following him back to the trail, and they walk the rest of the way back to the parking lot together. Richard’s parked his car way too close to Iris, so she can’t open the driver’s door. He walks around, trapping her and by the time Iris realizes what’s up, he tases her.
Iris wakes up later in the backseat of Richard’s car, her hands and feet zip-tied. She tries activating her smartwatch, but Richard tells her it’s no use since there’s no service. He also says he’s heard it all, the whole “please don’t do this” spiel, so that won’t work either. He gives her Mateo’s toy boat, like he’s such a nice guy. Then Iris remembers she still has the Swiss Army knife in her pocket and starts working at the zip tie on her wrists.
She asks him about Chloe but Richard’s not falling for it. She asks what he’s planning to do to her, and he says, “I want to braid your hair.” Yeah, okay, that’s definitely creepy. Then Iris breaks free and tries to stab him. As they wrestle the car veers off the road, smashing into a tree. They continue to fight – a pretty decent knock-down-drag-out, I might add – and they both end up falling out of the car on opposite sides. Richard gets up and comes at her, but Iris backs away holding the little knife on him.
Richard remarks how just a half-hour ago she was ready to kill herself. Then he asks if she’s feeling it yet – the drug he’s injected her with, a relaxant that will shut her body down in about 20 minutes. Deciding to chance it, Iris takes off into the woods, dropping the knife. She hears Richard’s voice all around her, taunting her. And she does a little finger exercise that she used to do with Mateo to make sure her coordination is still working.
And as she scales down some rocks, she tries doing it again, but discovers that her fingers are becoming affected. She slides down a hill and keeps going but realizes that her legs are getting stiff. Meanwhile, Richard just casually follows her, whistling a happy tune.
Now at the point where she has to crawl, she hides under some tree roots as Richard stands above her, not knowing she’s there. Iris has to stay still and quiet while a bunch of ants crawls over her face and hands. Unable to stand it, she pops out of her spot and drags herself toward the riverbank. Richard chases her but she manages to get into the water first. She manages to survive a stretch of rocks and whitewater before she gets washed up on the bank.
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With the drug fully kicking in, it takes everything Iris has to drag herself into a patch of grass before she’s totally immobilized. The grass and trees start doing that funky, Midsommar “breathing” thing as she vaguely sees someone in the distance. Then she hears a riding mower approaching – and just before she becomes mulch, the guy spots her. The nice guy, named Bill (Moray Treadwell), asks her questions and Iris manages to communicate by blinking, one for yes, two for no.
Bill gets her inside his cabin via wheelbarrow and not even a moment later there’s a knock on his door. All Iris can do is blink madly to warn Bill. Then he opens the door to find Richard there – who’s now calling himself Andrew and saying he’s been in a car accident. Which technically isn’t lying. Bill tells him to stay outside but Richard follows him in and spots the wheelbarrow.
A weirded-out Bill says he can either call 911 for help or to report an intruder. So Richard does his damnedest to stay pathetic, even crying. Bill plops down in his comfy chair and asks “Andrew” to tell him what’s really going on. Richard gives him a whole spiel about his wife Chloe, and her mental illness.
Of course, what Richard doesn’t realize is that Iris is lying on the floor behind the couch he’s sitting on. Covering his bases, Richard tells Bill that his poor wife goes catatonic during her “episodes.” Bill confides that his own wife died of a heart attack. And Richard repeats Iris’ words, “The world takes what it wants.” Then Richard’s cell phone starts going off.
Both of them knowing the jig is up, Richard asks about the wheelbarrow, and where Iris is, and Bill says he put her in the shed. Then they start fighting, and good ol’ Bill totally kicks Richard’s ass. But Richard manages to get a hold of a knife and stabs Bill right through the ankle and then fatally in the chest, several times. Then Richard hears Bill’s phone, still connected to 911, the dispatcher saying units are en route.
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Richard checks the shed, and of course, no Iris. She can only watch helplessly as he grabs a gas can and dumps it all over the cabin. As he lights the fire, a desperate Iris manages to grab hold of the pulls on the blinds and starts moving them, which catches Richard’s attention. He goes back in, finds her behind the couch and carries her out to Bill’s truck.
He belts her in, and turns her head to look at the blaze, saying, “See what you made me do?” As they drive, Richard tells her that’s the first man he’s ever killed. Then his phone rings – and surprisingly, it’s his daughter, telling him about her good report card. Then his wife gets on the line, wanting to join him out at the cabin. Richard tells her he needs time alone and his wife is like, yeah, well, this alone time’s happening more and more often, and she’s had it. They’re coming, end of discussion.
A frustrated Richard pulls into a gas station, but the card reader isn’t working so he has to leave Iris to go inside to pay. Iris keeps trying to move her fingers, helplessly watching all the people around who have no idea what’s going on. She uses all her might and manages to undo the seat belt buckle.
Then she leans slightly so that her face is against the window, and a little kid (Skye Dimova-Saw) sees her. He comes closer and Iris is immediately reminded of Mateo. But then the kid’s mom comes up and hurries him away just as Richard comes back. And after they drive away, it looks like the boy’s mom might be making a phone call to the cops.
They drive back to the car wreck and Iris watches as Richard grabs some stuff out of the trunk and changes his bloody shirt. Then he comes back with more zip ties, baby wipes and another syringe. Richard finds cable and hooks in Bill’s toolbox and goes to hitch the car to the truck.
Then a highway patrol cop (Daniel Francis) drives up, telling Richard that someone reported the truck, and that someone might be in trouble. The cop wants to talk to Iris, but Richard makes up some story about her being a drunk. Then the cop asks for his ID – but it’s expired. Then the cop asks how the wreck happened, and Richard makes up another story that drunk Iris took the car and wrapped it around the tree.
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As the cop asks Richard how his head got all bloody, Iris manages to roll the window down. Richard dodges the question and instead turns on the tears, telling the cop how they lost their son, basically repeating Iris’ story about Mateo. Iris does her best to say something, managing a whispered, “Help me.” The cop looks inside and spots the zip ties and syringe on the dash.
But unfortunately for him, Richard’s grabbed the cable and massive hooks and smashes the cop’s face in before he can get a shot off. Even after the poor guy’s dropped to the ground, Richard swings the hooks into his head a few more times.
Richard takes the cop’s gun and puts him back in his car before setting it on fire. As they speed away, Iris gets her full voice back and says, “Things aren’t going like you planned.” A furious Richard stops the truck, and there’s a sudden, awkward heart-to-heart about that accident with Chloe. Richard basically explains that right after the crash was when he “found his clarity,” and discovered that basically, he was God. And his last words to Chloe were, “Thank you,” as she was dying.
Iris reminds him about his wife and daughter and says that eventually he’s going to get caught and lose them. She begs him to just leave her on the side of the road. But instead, he drives them to a boat launch where there are already a couple of cinderblocks waiting on the dock to drown her.
“Shame we had to skip to the end,” he says. Then Iris suddenly stabs him in the leg with the syringe she took off the dash. But her fingers still aren’t quite moving right, and she can’t push the plunger. Richard yanks it out of his leg, squeezing the drug out.
Iris asks why he bothered trying to stop her from killing herself. He says he didn’t do anything. She did. The whole experience has given her back her will to live. Ironic, no? Iris lets out a few frustrated screams while Richard grabs a boning knife out of the toolbox and sticks it in his belt with the cop’s gun. He drags her out to the dock and puts her in the waiting skiff.
They row out to the middle of the lake and Iris asks Richard to get Mateo’s boat out of her pocket for her. As he’s doing that, Iris somehow manages to reach all the way around him to grab hold of the knife. And with an “I’m not sorry,” (a callback to their first conversation) she stabs him under the chin, and the long blade goes all the way through his cheek. Yow.
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While Richard’s stumbling around with the gun, Iris rocks the boat so he falls overboard. She grabs the gun and shoots wildly, hitting him and sending him back into the water. She lies on the bottom and actually laughs while Richard tries to swim back to shore, bleeding out.
Then Iris notices there’s water coming in – in her blind shooting, she accidentally punctured the boat. Still zip-tied, all she can do is take a deep breath as the boat sinks. A few moments pass, and we see Mateo’s boat floating by. Then Iris finally, victoriously emerges. She pulls herself onto the dock and thinks she’s okay – but then she sees Richard pulling himself onto shore not too far away.
Cut to Richard gasping out his last breaths and looking up to see Iris standing over him. Having found her clarity, she kneels down beside him and says, “Thank you,” before leaving him to choke to death on his own blood.
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Don’t Move comes to us under the producing wing of legendary Sam Raimi, which certainly adds more initial interest to a flick that might otherwise go unnoticed. Having Raimi’s name attached is Hollywood shorthand for decent horror. Anything he’s produced, like 2016’s Don’t Breathe and 2019’s Crawl, tends to have frightening elements, some nasty violence and gore.
So it would be nice to be able to say that Don’t Move fits in with those same flicks – neither of which were full-blown horror, but were very cleverly handled, violent thrillers with a definite edge. Unfortunately, though, Don’t Move doesn’t quite live up to that promise.
On the good side, the flick is a lean, right-to-the-point thriller for sure, and features a star-making performance from Kelsey Asbille. She shoulders most of the narrative weight and does so without dialogue. Relying on her eyes, facial expressions and body language, she does a terrific job of showing us the drug immobilizing her. And even before that, her silent expressions of sorrow and grief are clear and affecting.
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The other thing working in the flick’s favor is Iris’ interplay with Finn Wittrock’s Richard. He doesn’t have much in the way of depth, but Richard works well enough as a handsome, charming, Ted Bundy-esque bad guy. Wittrock does a fair job of showing Richard’s quick and unsettling changes in demeanor. And he and Asbille have decent chemistry – enough that we kind of wish we could see more than the runtime allows.
And while Don’t Move does have some great moments like Richard and Iris’ fight in the car, Richard’s fight with Bill and the startling attack on the cop, there’s just something about the flick that keeps it from being truly great – and truly memorable. While there’s an obvious correlation the filmmakers are trying to stress between Iris’ physical paralysis and her paralyzing grief over her son, the story doesn’t delve any deeper than what’s on the surface. So as a result, the whole thing tends to feel a bit forced. Or like a cursory exercise in how to make a basic serial killer thriller.
That said, though, if all you’re looking for is something quick, fun and horror-esque to watch on a Friday night, you could do a lot worse.
Don’t Move is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.
Directed by: Brian Netto, Adam Schindler
Written by: TC Cimfel, David White
Release date: Oct.25, 2024
Rating: R
Run time: 1hr, 32min
Distributor: Netflix
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