Critic Reviews

There's a throbbing theme at You Should Have Left's core about what it means to be a man. But if subtext isn't your jam, you can kick back, switch off, and enjoy the eerie thrills and jolting scares of this satisfying horror-thriller.

It’s low-key in tone and not a splatter fest, even remotely. You Should Have Left is horror for a thinking audience.

The movie won’t disturb your dreams, but it grabs hold of you and keeps tugging.

Bacon holds it steady, setting up residence in an uneasy, unwell character, unconcerned with making him likable or worth rooting for — the kind of person who gets left behind, and with good reason.

It’s all rater less than the sum of its parts, but the first two thirds of You Should Leave” impress and engross. It’s a pity we don’t get to see it with an audience. Because if there’s one thing that amplifies tiny frights, it’s other people overreacting as if they’re scared out of their wits.

Koepp and his cast successfully convey how afraid the family becomes once it's clear they're being supernaturally prevented from leaving the house. But that's not the most original idea upon which to build a franchise, and it's clear from both third-act exposition and the pic's final scene that the filmmakers want just that.

There's an unintended kick, in the current moment, watching a movie designed to make you want to flee the confines of a house.

While the film gets points for bucking tradition and trying to portray its scenes of fright mostly in bright daylight (shot with sharpness by cinematographer Angus Hudson), the scares just aren’t very scary. It doesn’t help that the pacing never feels right, with long stretches of the film focusing on things that would’ve been better served by being truncated.

You Should Have Left often feels like a watered-down version of The Shining, but Koepp still manages to maintain interest in its mind-bending story.

You Should Have Left works when it’s a streamlined campfire ghost story, but the unnecessary bells and whistles weighs it down. Still, it’s just good enough to work as a timewaster for genre fans.