'Youll Never Find Me' Review Shudder Horror Is All Bark and No Bite
The Big Picture
- The film's first act sets up a tense and atmospheric dynamic between the characters.
- The final act loses direction, focusing on shocking horror imagery over meaningful themes.
- The ending lacks nuance, leaving characters underdeveloped and failing to provide a satisfying conclusion.
What sounds scarier to you? You live alone in a secluded mobile home in an isolated trailer park. In the middle of the night, as a storm that could end the world rages outside, you hear a knock at the door. The person continues to bang and you know that they will not go quietly. Should you let this stranger into your home? Can they be trusted? Or are they some deranged psychopath ready to kill you? Or, is it more threatening to be alone, caught outside in a raging storm, with no coat or shoes? You are at the mercy of a stranger and you bang on their door, begging them to let you in before you die of hypothermia. Can you trust this person to give you shelter, a ride, or the use of a phone? Or are they some deranged psychopath ready to kill you? This dichotomy of circumstances and perspective is at the center of Shudder’s horror chamber pieceYou’ll Never Find Me by the directing duo of Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen from a script by Bell.
While it’s an interesting dynamic to study, it all falls apart as the film becomes wrapped up in trying to deliver imagery and a finale that will shock you, abandoning any character development or thematic heft. It instead descends into a directionless mess of a finale, demanding a lot of patience from its audience as we are expected to invest in characters the film didn't finish developing. While, at first, it succeeds in going in directions that the audience won't expect, it ultimately hangs itself on destinations that don't feel earned.
You'll Never Find Me
HorrorThrillerPatrick, a strange and lonely resident, lives in a mobile home at the back of an isolated trailer park. After a violent storm, a mysterious young woman appears at his door seeking shelter from the elements.
Release Date June 10, 2023 Director Josiah Allen , Indianna Bell Cast Brendan Rock , Jordan Cowan , Elena Carapetis , Angela Korng , Luca Trimboli , Finn Watson Runtime 96 Minutes Main Genre Horror Writers Indianna Bell ExpandWhat Is 'You’ll Never Find Me' About?
The Australian horror opens with Patrick (Brendan Rock), a middle-aged, disheveled man who lives in a modest and isolated mobile home. The heavens are opening up outside, pelting against the thin walls of his home, feeling like they could close in on him at any moment. He is drinking whiskey alone at his table, looking conflicted and sullen. His somber introspection is broken by a loud rapping on his door. He’s reluctant to answer it; who could be calling at this time of night? It’s a nameless woman in her 20s (Jordan Cowan), and while she doesn’t say much nor does she show a specific expression on her face, she begs to be let in. She’s soaked through and barefoot, with only a thin shirt to protect herself from the elements.
She asks Patrick for help — a lift to the closest town, the use of his phone, or information on local transport. Patrick can’t offer any of these, explaining them away with a multitude of meek excuses. While he seems apprehensive to help her, he slowly starts to show more kindness, offering to dry her shirt, allowing her to use his shower, and preparing her a hot meal. She, on the other hand, only appears more and more suspicious to both Patrick and the audience. She has no decent explanation for why she was caught in a storm without the appropriate attire, and she can’t account for why she was able to get into the park when the gates closed much earlier. While the situation would lead you to worry for the woman, Patrick, at first, seems to have more reason to be nervous about his houseguest.
'You'll Never Find Me' Is Slow to Reveal Who the Real Villain Is
As the film progresses, your suspicions are constantly switching between the two. The script intentionally makes her suspicious, as we know very little about her while Patrick monologues about the sadder moments in his life, rendering him somewhat vulnerable. He at first appears as a lonely man who has been through things. She is skittish, never fully relaxing even though Patrick doesn’t show any signs of ill intent. Patrick constantly catches her out in her lies, and you start to suspect that she has an ulterior motive, that it wasn’t random that she landed at his house. It’s an interesting twist on the usual gender dynamics we see in horror and thrillers. But then, around halfway through the film, just when you think some backstory is going to slide into place, making everyone’s intentions clear, the film descends into completely nonsensical territory, rendering everything you’ve seen up to this point worthless.
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A key conversation takes place around 20 minutes in. Patrick is waxing poetic about the responsibility women have to take when they put themselves in dangerous situations. “Some women just want to blame everyone else for their bad decisions,” he says. The young woman matches his pessimistic view on life, believing that we are all just outrunning something and trying to “find new scenery for our misery.” While she definitely could do with some self-help books, his views on female safety immediately put the viewer on high alert. Minutes later, when the woman starts to suspect that Patrick isn’t just a lonely man, she’s forced to choose between his gaslighting and her intuition. It's a situation many women have been in. Do you trust your gut and risk offending someone, or do you stay quiet until it’s too late? And are you to blame for putting yourself in harm’s way?
'You'll Never Find Me's First Act Is the Strongest
The first half of the film sets up some interesting ideas. Victim-blaming, how humans treat each other when one is in need, and the safety of women are all touched and laid out in the many exchanges between Patrick and the woman. But between all of these more interesting ideas, we get tedious monologues from Patrick about God, his ex-wife, and the isolation of his existence. His pious ramblings take away from any attention or chemistry with the woman. Again, this film will test your patience, and that’s all down to the script. When the action gets going, and it becomes clear who needs to fear who, we are asked to root for one character and resent the other. But because the script so far has barely given the women any backstory and only given Patrick philosophic meditations on life’s misery — which sound like they came from a SamuelBeckett play, this almost plays like Shudder’s Waiting for Godot — it’s hard to feel invested or connected to either character.
'You'll Never Find Me's Ending Is Chaos
The final act completely shifts gears, and begs the question “Does this film know what it wants to be?” While the first two acts make up a character study dripping in tension, the final 40 minutes feel like they were constructed merely to shock the audience. The last-ditch effort at a “twist” feels predictable yet wholly out of place. What makes the first act worth watching is that you genuinely do not know what is going to happen. Is it a Lovecraftian cosmic horror, and the two characters are in a mobile home that is floating through another dimension? Are Patrick and the woman (oh yeah, she doesn't get a name) somewhat connected with a backstory dating back years? The possibilities are what keep you hooked. But once the film reveals its true intentions, the disappointment is too profound to stay engaged.
The ending is more concerned with packing in as much horror imagery as possible without assigning much meaning to any one of them. Themes are replaced by frights and the film ditches any attempt at commentary to become a derivative gimmick, offering no nuance or character development. Both Patrick and the woman remain stale throughout. They start as the absolute focus of the film but are then shoved aside in favor of desperate ploys to leave the audience confused and shocked. While ambiguous endings can serve to leave the ideas the film has set up to the audience to interpret for themselves, making the viewing experience more immersive, You’ll Never Find Me gets lost in its own madness. Its ending is less ambiguous and more thoughtless.
Brendan Rock and Jordan Cowan Give Committed Performances in 'You'll Never Find Me'
For a film that demands a lot from just two players, both Rock and Cowna turn in concerted efforts. The script asks them to constantly switch between hunter and prey, and both handle the constant juggling of different demeanors with ease. Rock's somber, reticent, and foreboding persona is never overpowering, always leaving room for a nervous, skittish, yet confident clapback from Cowan. The film is strongest when it allows for a back-and-forth between the two, and the lead performances are what ultimately holds the film together when the plot gives way. The directing from Bell and Allen outruns the writing by a mile, never showing any impatience (almost too much so) to get the film going, lingering on the smaller moments that amp up the tension.
You’ll Never Find Me is a self-serious, tense, and nightmarish film between two people. It raises some interesting ideas, establishes a heavy atmosphere and an unpredictable narrative, but spoils it all by trying too hard to leave its audience with open mouths. There is a better film to be made out of its first act, one where the idea of who is the victim and who is the predator is in the eye of the beholder. But these are just glimpses, buried by a final act that seemingly doesn’t understand nor care for everything that came before it.
REVIEWYou'll Never Find Me
You'll Never Find Me is a horror thriller with a tense first act but ends up giving way to a half-baked script and derivative horror choices.
10Pros- You'll Never Find Me is led by two committed performances.
- The first act succeeds in creating a palpable atmosphere of tension.
- The film's final act descends into directionless chaos, leaving the audience on a weak note.
- The setup of the film's themes and ideas ultimately leads no way, as they are abandoned for attempts to shock the audience by horrific imagery.
You'll Never Find Me is now available to stream on Shudder in the U.S.
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