An evil is out there in the world destroying it, or at least that’s what Mama Jo (Halle Berry) says. That evil is something that her sons Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) and Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) truly believe in. She has a way of protecting them, like a magical rope that she ties to them, but the world beckons. Nolan is the braver and more creative one, and that bravery gets stronger during an egg hunt gone wrong. Food scarcity during the winter and the evil’s strength divides the family on what to do in order to survive.

I’ll get to how Alexandre Aja’s Never Let Go handles its themes but credit is due to his flexibility. Nolan’s contribution to hunting and foraging, which turns into that egg fiasco, is reminiscent of Ghibli’s sense of natural wonder. Yes, that feels much, but all one has to do is make kids skip around to have that feel. Another credit is due for making British Columbia look like the bayous of Louisiana, which is, I presume, the setting. It’s also good that much of this film takes place during the daytime, where it looks better than at night.

As these characters repeat their survival tactic and the film’s title, the viewers start becoming of two minds. The first is that the evil is real, and the second is that Jo is raising children despite her mental illness. And no, I’m not suggesting that Never Let Go is positing that neuroatypical women don’t have any child rearing skills. It is showing that a neuroatypical household member can be a factor where parental control and rebellion come into play. That and several strokes of bad luck can definitely make things worse for people who are and think differently.

Never Let Go, then, is basically Dogtooth but the characters are Afro-American, which changes the dynamic of the film. Some viewers may understand the difficulties of raising racialized children in a country full of white people who are ‘hostile’. Nolan and Samuel don’t see race because they only know each other and Jo, but the story differs when outsiders come in. There are minor white characters in the film, and only two of them transfigure into monsters. That, or again, Jo’s delusions are taking root, and she’s passing these delusions to her children, one way or another. 

In horror, all monsters are real, whether or not they’re human or the literal ones trying to touch us. Never Let Go belongs to the ‘are the monsters fake or real’ subgenre, one that has worse examples than this. There’s a worse version of this film that plays to that ambiguity, which touches enough on real world psychological states. There are better horror films that convince us that the monsters are real and that’s the end of discussion. Never Let Go, though, forces its ambiguity, and a film with this kind of foundation can’t, despite everything, be good.