Watched this on a lazy Sunday evening with my old housemates/closest uni pals during a reunion in Falmouth recently. It was ideal viewing for our hungover and tired states.
A clever concept, taking the tired woman alone versus killer trope and adding something new, a deaf protagonist.
The film did fall in some of the same old traps of the genre. More than a few times we were shouting at the TV and shaking our heads in disbelief at some of the decisions Maddie took in her attempt to survive the killer. But overall it felt fresher than most and it dealt with lots of the technological solutions that contemporary set horrors face and even used some of them to add an extra level of creepiness. Stealing her phone and messaging her on her laptop from her phone was particularly unsettling.
Other than the obvious issues with a film like this, I had one issue and that was the mask coming off far too early. A lot of the initial terror came from the Michael Myers-esque mask starring through the windows but it came off pretty quickly into the killer's appearance. I understand why it came off then but personally I would have shifted things around and drawn on that element for longer. I was surprised to see John Gallagher Jr. when the mask came off. I'm so used to him as Jim from Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom where he plays such a likeable guy. He did an incredible job as the nameless killer and I'm really keen to see some more varying roles from him in the future.