Horror followers all know the trope: when tragedy strikes, evil spirits attempt to prey on the survivors left behind. (Bonus factors if there’s a baby concerned.) The Twin—the English-language debut of Finnish writer-director Taneli Mustonen (2016’s true crime-inspired Lake Bodom), who co-wrote with producer Aleksi Hyvärinen, begins off very a lot in that vein. And then… it takes an enormous flip.

We’ll give no additional particulars about The Twin’s curveball, apart from to notice that it’s the principle purpose to test the film out. Otherwise, it’s a well-made however not totally unique story. It stars A Discovery of Witches’ Teresa Palmer as Rachel, a younger mom who agrees to maneuver from New York to her husband’s native Finland after they lose one in every of their twin sons in a automotive accident. A contemporary begin is simply what they want! But this being a horror film, issues clearly don’t go in keeping with plan. Rachel, who already thinks Anthony (performed by one in every of Palmer’s Witches co-stars, Steven Cree) isn’t displaying sufficient consideration to their surviving youngster, Elliot (Tristan Ruggeri), begins to suspect one thing’s fallacious with the boy—questioning early on, “Haven’t you noticed anything odd with his behavior since we’ve been here?” Even worse, the city (a picturesque Scandinavian village) the place their new residence (a powerful outdated mansion surrounded by a forest) is positioned is full of unfriendly locals—other than the eccentric Helen (performed by yet one more Discovery of Witches co-star, Barbara Marten), who assures her proper off the bat “I’m not crazy, all the others are.” (Anthony calls her “a crackpot.”)

Circumstances—notably native legends enhanced by Helen’s personal tales concerning the “rich pagan culture” that originally drew her to the world—mixed with Elliot’s more and more unusual habits (at one level, he begins insisting he’s truly Nathan, his useless brother) lead Rachel to begin to suspect sinister forces are focusing on her household. It doesn’t assist that she retains having nightmares and waking goals that mix flashbacks to the automotive accident and her son’s funeral with ugly visions that really feel like foreshadowing. (“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” she says at one level, an statement we quickly start to share.) A viewer may cease and surprise, why is the village physician so dismissive of her issues about Elliot? Why does The Twin zoom previous seemingly essential plot factors, like Elliot’s sudden disappearance from the household’s welcome occasion or Rachel’s out-of-nowhere confession that her late son, Nathan, had “issues” she was uninterested in coping with previous to his demise?

The viewer may additionally cease and surprise why there are nonetheless half-hour left within the film when it seems to be totally enmeshed in its endgame, however we already defined why that’s the case. Whether or not you admire the twist will impression your general opinion of The Twin, whose nebulous Eighties-Nineteen Nineties setting presents a simple solution to eradicate cell telephones and the web from its plot mechanics; it additionally additionally offers a purpose for The Twin to casually function… the Twin Towers… within the background of its New York scenes. In my eyes, the path the plot takes in its last act isn’t fairly satisfying sufficient to justify pulling the rug out from beneath the whole movie that got here earlier than, scrambling all its Rosemary’s Baby meets Midsommar (plus spooky child) vibes. But it actually units The Twin aside from the numerous different movies additionally constructed from related DNA strands.

The Twin hits theaters, on demand and digital, and streams on Shudder at this time.

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