I Will Never Leave You Alone 2024 Movie Review
A lot of genre filmmakers plainly do, but don’t want to be too on-the-nose about it. Written and directed by DW Medoff, I Will Never Leave You Alone is one of a clutch of FF films – The Bunker, The Dæmon, Fright, Ghost Game, Ladybug, The Monster Beneath Us, Things Will Be Different – which feature folk who for one reason or other can’t leave a house where they are assailed by supernatural, psychological and physical terrors. It may be that the after-effects of the pandemic will feature in horror films for a good few years, especially with so many issues left unresolved.
A frequent complaint with stories about people terrorised by malign ghosts in a haunted house is ‘why don’t they just leave?’. I Will Never Leave You Alone – a title which can be threatening or comforting, depending on line reading – comes up with a new, credible reason for the hauntee staying put and then puts a fresh spin on the relationship between the protagonist and the two female ghosts (of different types) which haunt him.
Richard (Kenneth Trujillo), non-verbal with a cutthroat scar, comes to the end of a prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter and is set up with a peculiar job for a slightly nervy Realtor (Kimberly Maxwell). Her firm offer a new age service with certain properties, carrying out a ritual involving prayer and candles which is supposed to rid the site of any lingering ghosts. Richard is locked into an isolated old house and not told much about what happened there, and he has to stick it out – lighting candles – for six full days. If he quits, he breaks parole and goes back to prison.
Richard has flashbacks to his up-and-down marriage to bipolar Cindy (Katerina Eichenberger), which dole out the story of how he wound up mute and in prison. Friendly handyman Mike (Christopher Genovese) is the only person who takes the trouble to drop in and see if Richard is getting on okay – but he also lets slip unreassuring information about a witch who was horribly treated on this property in the 18th century and the fact that Richard isn’t the first sucker to attempt this cleansing ritual.
Trujillo, who only talks in the flashbacks, is excellent as the doubly troubled protagonist, and has an unusual character arc. The witch, with sewn-shut mouth and nailed-closed eyes, is a horror movie hag, but emerges as a not completely unsympathetic figure … Mike wonders how the story would have ended if the townsfolk had just asked if she was okay rather than tortured her to death. A former alcoholic, Richard finds himself drinking mouthwash and beset by visions of his wife and the witch – who sometimes conflate and sometimes separate – as he loses enthusiasm for the task at hand and begins to respond in unexpected ways to the haunting. A sinister witch-doll keeps popping up and there are other haunted objects – including a telephone, more mutant toys and dark spaces in cupboards – which feel a little like some of the tone of Skinamarink seeping into more mainstream narrative horror.
