'YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT'....WE SHOULDN'T HAVE BOTHERED

 You Should Have Left (2020)   The only thing worth discussing here would be to contemplate why Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried would waste their time and talent appearing in a rock-bottom Blumhouse horror movie. 

              Every week, it seems there's literally a forest of new cheapjack horror films released and the only reason we plucked this one off the library rental shelves from among the others was the presence of these two stars.

              We can take a guess as to Bacon's participation - the movie, basically a 24 minute 'Twilight Zone' episode stretched and dragged out to 93 minutes, offers Bacon a chance for an almost one man show. The story's a metaphysical punchline that's all about the Bacon-ator's character, an aging, neurotic banker uneasily married to a young movie star (Seyfried) at the peak of her busy career.

               As for Seyfried, we've no idea why she landed here. She glumly plods through  the kind of worthless, throwaway role that she'd be stuck with when she was an unknown, struggling starlet. 

                In the film, this queasy Hollywood marriage sags and groans under the weight of Bacon's baggage -  though exonerated in court for the murder of his first wife, everyone believes he did it (You know this because an early scene shows a production assistant on Seyfried's movie deliberately humiliating Bacon, refusing him entrance to the set.)

                  Seeking quality family time for himself, his wife and toddler daughter, Bacon books an Air BNB week in a sprawling, ultra modern glass and brick mansion that sits on a middle-of-nowhere hill in the most middle-of-nowhere chunk of Wales. 

                Needless to say.....spooky stuff happens. The house itself, as in dreams and nightmares, is geometrically impossible, larger on the inside than the outside.  And who's the creepy old ghosty guy who pops up from time to time?

                 Feel free to yawn at this point. We did. Frequently. 

                  The film's big reveal, unusually philosophical for a low rent horror flick, is what no doubt attracted Bacon and screenwriter-director David Koepp. We think these guys wanted you to go, "Hmmmm.....well that's interesting..."  way more than they wanted to go, "Booga Booga!". 

                  Sorry guys. For the amount of time they took to get to film's point, all we could mutter was "Hmmmm.......well, we should've picked a much better movie than this."

                    1 star (*). Leave it sit on whatever shelf you find it.