JP Nunez
I’m really excited to tell you guys about Surrogate. I didn’t know much about it going in, but it was pitched to me as a supernatural horror movie in the vein of The Babadook, and that sold me right away. I’m a big fan of The Babadook, so I couldn’t wait to see what scary surprises this one had in store for me. And now that I’ve seen it, I’m happy to report that while it’s not nearly as similar to The Babadook as I thought it would be, it’s still one of the best horror movies I’ve seen all year.
Surrogate was co-written and directed by David Willing, and it stars Kestie Morassi, Jane Badler, Taysha Farrugia, Louise Siverson, Ellie Stewart, and Ellie Tevelis. It’s about a woman named Natalie who falls mysteriously ill after trying to help a woman she meets on the way home from work one day, and soon afterwards, she and her daughter Rose begin to experience some odd phenomena. At first, Natalie doesn’t know what to make of these strange goings-on, but she soon finds herself in a struggle to keep her daughter safe from a malevolent supernatural entity.
Right from the get-go, Surrogate had me hooked. Even before anything scary happened, I just found all the characters super likable. The acting and the writing are excellent, so I felt like I was watching real people rather than actors reading lines. In particular, I have to give special mention to the kids in this cast, Taysha Farrugia, Ellie Stewart, and Ellie Tevelis. Child actors can be pretty hit or miss, but these three are just as good as the adults in the film. I was really impressed by their performances, so I’m excited to see what they do in the future.
Then, once the horror starts to kick in, the movie gets even better. Unlike a lot of genre films these days, this one doesn’t drown you with jump scares. Sure, it features a handful of them, but they’re not the movie’s main focus. It’s more about the atmosphere and the mystery, and the way I see it, that’s the best kind of horror.
On top of that, because Surrogate isn’t all about jump scares, it doesn’t just give us the typical haunted house cliches we’ve seen a million times before. Sure, we get some of that stuff, but there’s more to this movie than just loud noises and doors moving on their own. There are some pretty clever ideas here, so at first, I had no idea what was happening to Natalie and her daughter. It was a really intriguing mystery, and as the story went on, I just became more and more hooked.
In particular, the way these strange events fit together is just about perfect. On the one hand, there seems to be a bit of a common thread connecting them all, so I was able to get a vague sense of where the story was headed. But on the other hand, the fit wasn’t 100%, so I couldn’t be entirely sure if my ideas were correct.
That mix kept me from becoming too baffled or too confident in my predictions, so I was able to stay engaged with the mystery without figuring it all out on my own. That’s a tough balance for a movie to maintain, but Surrogate manages to do it without breaking a sweat.
Then, at about the halfway point, the film starts to lean more into typical haunted house territory, and I have to say, it’s not quite as good. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the second half too, but the more explicit horror just isn’t quite as interesting as the subtle setup that came before it.
However, there are still some really good scares in this part of the movie, and I have to give special mention to one scene that I found particularly effective. I’m not going to say what happens, but I will say that it involves mirrors. It has some of the best, most unnerving tension in the entire film, and it doesn’t play out the way I expected it to, so it had me on the absolute edge of my seat.
On top of that, the second half of Surrogate also wears its influences on its sleeve pretty openly, so if you’re a longtime horror fan, you’ll probably notice a lot of similarities to other genre movies. Most notably, I caught hints of Poltergeist, The Changeling, The Ring, and even the Japanese movie Dark Water. So in that sense, this part of the film does have a bit of a “been there, done that” kind of feel to it, but it never really bothered me. Surrogate combines these familiar tropes and plot points in a unique way, and it executes them so well that I had no trouble forgiving the lack of originality.
In fact, this film doesn’t really have any major flaws. Sure, there are a few things I could nitpick here and there, but on the whole, this is just an all-around well-made movie with particularly strong characters and some really excellent horror. So if you’re looking for something good to watch, I’m happy to say that I highly recommend Surrogate. Like I said before, this is one of the best genre films I’ve seen all year, so if this sounds like something you’d enjoy, I think you’re really going to like it.
Surrogate will be released via Amazon on September 2, and then it’ll hit Google TV and Tubi on September 16.
