Son

Upholding genre tropes whilst subverting them, Son is an unsettling fever-dream drenched in unspeakable acts that leave viewers on edge until the end.

Yet in spite of this promising narrative foundation, the film’s gruesome effects and the compelling performance from Blumm, Son seriously suffers from assorted perils of predictability and protractedness.

The plotting is, alas, a little slack in the later stages. There is a sense of flailing around en route to a reasonably satisfactory destination. Son remains, nonetheless, the work of a singular, oddball talent. Seek out.

Kavanagh and Matichak do a remarkable job of capturing an amped-up version of everyday parental paranoia. This is ultimately a movie about a woman who loves her child so intensely that she becomes irrational — and dangerous.

Son never quite binds its tricky, episodic story into a persuasive or gripping whole.

Son never quite binds its tricky, episodic story into a persuasive or gripping whole.