Originally associated with the “New French Extremity” movement that emphasized the depiction of transgressive, boundary-pushing gore and violence onscreen, horror auteur Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension) made the jump to English-language films with the relentlessly ultra-violent, nihilistic 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes. Four years later, Aja injected playful, absurdist fun with another gorier-than-gory remake, Piranha 3D. Middling, disposable efforts (Mirrors, Maniac, Horns) followed, suggesting Aja had fallen into a slump. Aja, however, enjoyed a return to form with 2019’s Crawl, a ferociously gnarly, mean-spirited, Florida-based eco-horror.
Aja’s latest film Never Let Go is a post-apocalyptic thriller set at a literal cabin in the woods (horror trope alert!). Oscar winner Halle Berry stars as a mother whose unconditional love for her twin sons, Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV), takes a dark, twisted turn into despair, fear, and paranoia. Unshakably convinced of a forest-dwelling demonic presence that can possess anyone with just a simple touch, the unnamed mother – she’s just “momma” to her sons – obsessively relies on interlocking rituals to keep her credulous sons safe from supernatural harm.
A literalized — maybe too literal — metaphor for a parent’s natural concerns for her children, the central conceit connects to the oft-repeated title of the film. Whenever the characters venture outside, they’re tied to ropes attached to the cabin. The ropes allow them to forage for food, including insects, frogs, and squirrels, and raise vegetables in the adjacent greenhouse. Inside the cabin, they say prayers on bended knees while touching a carved door. And when their faith falters, Samuel and Nolan descend into a hollowed-out recess where they’ll not just pray, but imagine themselves overcoming the evil embedded in the darkness outside their home.
After laying down the rules and the lore in the first act, Aja and screenwriters Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby almost immediately undermine them. An inadvertently untethered Samuel slips and falls down an embankment, followed by Nolan (also untethered), and their mother. Wracked by fear for her sons’ safety, Momma re-tethers them moments before a hollow-eyed, ink-stained wretch appears behind her. Only Momma, however, sees the demonic spectre, which invites the audience to distrust not Momma’s words and her rule-bound belief system.
Never Let Go evolves from post-apocalyptic survival horror story to an exploration of the corrosive effects of ideological mania. Momma turns into a terrifying and wrathful figure like something out of the Old Testament. She’s calm and compassionate one moment, but hard and ungenerous the next. She’s like a saviour to her children, but also an existential threat. That dichotomy contributes to Nolan’s increasing doubts about his mother, her beliefs, and the outside world. As Nolan doubts, however, Samuel reaffirms his ideological devotion to his mother.
Aja directs the first and second acts with the assured hand of a longtime horror director, emphasizing mood, tempo, and texture. He highlights the cabin’s wooden interiors, natural lighting, and the occasional hint of life before the cataclysm that unleashed an amorphous evil into the world. Gradually, Aja ups the tension to the breaking point and beyond, inexorably tightening the figurative noose, specifically the spectre of starvation and the debilitating effects on the bodies and minds of Samuel, Nolan, and their mother. As Momma’s past returns in ghostly, hallucinogenic form, intra-family fissures threaten to fracture the family.
While Never Let Go eventually stumbles story-wise, predictably suffering from third-act syndrome that says a mystery, once suggested, must be resolved satisfactorily, it still proves engaging thanks to top-flight performances from Berry, Jenkins, and Daggs. As Samuel and Nolan, respectively, Jenkins and Daggs deliver deeply persuasive performances, both individually and collectively as brothers finding themselves on opposite sides of a belief system that might, in the end, turn out to be pure fiction.
