'I Will Never Leave You Alone' is a Spooky Season Treat

         On October 18, 2024, Dark Sky Films released 'I Will Never Leave You Alone', which has earned predominantly positive reviews from critics. In the film, "Richard is a mute who is on parole from prison and has been released into the mandatory custody of a superstitious real estate investor who pays him to stay alone in a haunted house for six days to rid it of evil spirits. This is his chance to return to a normal life, but there's a dark catch: if he fails to stay all six nights, the investor will send him back to prison. Once on the isolated property, Richard finds a creepy, old doll that unleashes the evil spirit of a witch murdered on the property centuries ago. The witch haunts him and eventually tortures him using the painful memories that led him to prison. Pushed to his limit after a few days, he can't leave or stay. Unable to ask for help or even scream, Richard is trapped and alone, struggling to cope with haunting as it destroys his reality. There's no telling what Richard will do if the witch-ghost fully invades his mind." The ensemble cast includes Kenneth Trujillo, Katerina Eichenberger, Emma Anne Wedemeyer, and Christopher Genovese. Read the full review round-up below.

        Kat Hughes of THN says, "I Will Never Leave You Alone is a film that is consumed by feelings of guilt and regret. As Richard begins his vigil, he finds himself tormented by his past. Regardless of whether the rumoured ghosts are real, Richard has the echoes of his former life to deal with. Prior to going to prison he lived with his wife and young baby. Sadly, their lives were less than idyllic, with Richard a destructive alcoholic and his wife Emma (Katerina Eichenberger) struggling with postnatal depression. As I Will Never Leave You Alone progresses, initial glimpses of Richard’s time before extend to fully fledged scenes. The longer they become, the more harrowing and confronting the story becomes. The true extent of the horror that Richard has endured is eventually revealed; it is thoroughly unpleasant and exceptionally bleak. If you thought The Coffee Table was upsetting, you haven’t seen anything yet." Adding, "As Richard is haunted by his past, he is simultaneously stalked by a wicked presence within the house. Unlike those before him, Richard does not crumble, the stoic and silent character seemingly accepts this treatment as punishment for his former actions. Instead of becoming increasingly more terrified, he is affected by his encounters in different and more dangerous ways. Watching him fall to pieces is tough to see, but Kenneth Trujillo gives a fantastic performance. Richard’s self-imposed silence means Trujillo has to convey a range of complex emotions through facial expression alone, and the actor does stellar work at making the audience invest in him. Not quite a tragic hero, Richard does still evoke empathy from the viewer. The closer the film gets to its conclusion, the higher the emotional toll on the audience."

       Anton Bitel of Projected Figures notes, A haunted man in a haunted house, hoping to exorcise his own damaged soul as much as the “evil spirits” within, even as this weeklong residency triggers all his deep, better-forgotten traumas – it is a premise that opens the film to both supernatural and psychological readings. For as things go bump in the night, and in this lonely, isolated place Richard’s own personal ghosts catch up with him as much as the legendary Crone who was already inhabiting his dreams and his mind before he even arrived here, we see different narratives resonating, different planes of existence intersecting and different metaphors mixing, with our mute, marginalised hero exhibiting the same longing and loss, grief and guilt, as the lonely stitch-mouthed witch who has been plaguing this farmhouse, once and always her own, for centuries.  I Will Never Leave You Alone is not only the title of writer/director DW Medoff’s second feature (after Pollen, 2023), but also a recurrent phrase in its narrative, uttered in flashback and written on scrap paper and emblazoned over the mantelpiece where Richard lights his expiatory candles. The words are equivocal, ambiguating between a promise of an everlasting commitment to love and a threat of eternal haunting – and Richard’s past failure to live up to the former is what has led him to these domestic interiors of horrific history and illusory wish fulfilment, where forever homes are found and lost lovers reunited – just so long as you never wake up."

Photo by Benjamin Cheng on Unsplash