The Twin review
This is why you shouldn’t try to make Fetch happen.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Twin
Directed by J.C. Doler
Written by Paul Petersen and J.C. Doler
Starring Logan Donovan, Robert Longstreet, Aleksa Palladino, Shannon Chochran, Alex Barone and Chris Alan Evans
The Twin Review
Grief and horror have long made for obvious bedfellows. Themes of guilt and loss fit right into what many horror films strive to deliver. In fact, there may be just as many horror movies about those subjects as any other we can come up with. They may not be as flashy as “slasher” or “possession” as a subgenre…but they’re baked into so many projects. There is a time and a place for a movie like The Twin…a story about a father struggling with the loss of his child. I’m just not sure that place and time is Shudder in 2025. Through no fault of its own…it may have landed in the worst place at the worst time.
Shudder is now two-thirds of the way through its 2025 exclusive/original offerings. The best word I can come up with to describe the year thus far is…ok. Ish. I hate to put an asterisk on an already faint amount of praise…but it hasn’t been great. We’ve gone into detail on this subject before…but the quick version is that the new Shudder model sees most of its “bigger” exclusives hit theaters long before they join the service. While a movie like Dangerous Animals is legitimately great (IMO)…it won’t hit the streaming service until later this week…three months after it played for the price of a movie ticket. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue if the films heading directly to the service were better…or, at least, more abundant.
Dangerous Animals, Clown in a Cornfield, The Ugly Stepsister, The Rule of Jenny Pen, Ash and Get Away all made their way through theaters before settling onto the service. Some of that is based on the acquisition rights…but it all holds to the larger point that the new model sees a higher percentage of investment in non-direct to streaming “exclusives” and “originals”. Those movies ranged from great to fine. Others with the same roll out strategy didn’t fare as well. Hell House LLC: Lineage and House on Eden…not so good. They’ll both have faster turnarounds to join Shudder…but they hit theaters first. The biggest movie left in Shudder’s arsenal for 2025 Good Boy will have an expanded theatrical release on October 3rd after its trailer went viral. It was always going to theaters in some capacity before joining Shudder.
And that’s fine. It’s probably keeping the cost of the service low. Allowing them to make money another way. Perfectly fine. It’s not even a new concept. Late Night with the Devil, Oddity and Stopmotion all had theatrical releases before heading to Shudder (and our Top Ten list for 2024). That last part is where the problem begins. Dangerous Animals is the only Shudder release in the first 8 months of 2025 that has a shot at hitting this year’s Top Ten list. Last year, those three were joined by the direct to streaming film MadS. Four spots in a yearly Top Ten is an incredible accomplishment. In A Violent Nature made many people’s best of 2024 after taking a theatrical to streaming route. Eight months later…they may be looking at none.
Of course, the year isn’t over. Good Dog has positive buzz. V/H/S/Halloween (direct to Shudder on the same day as Good Dog hits theaters) could deliver big. Influencers may be arriving soon. Shudder can definitely end 2025 on some high notes. But its direct to streaming exclusives and originals has, without question, taken another hit this year. Monster Island, Push, Best Wishes to All, The Surrender, Frewaka, Shadow of God, 825 Forest Road, The Dead Thing, Grafted, Dark Match…how many of these movies left a strong impression? Grafted and The Dead Thing stand out as the best of the lot. It’s not exactly peak Shudder though…is it?
Which, finally, brings us back to The Twin. A Shudder exclusive distributed directly to the streaming service. It can easily slip into the above list of solid, but unspectacular releases from the streamer in 2025. It’s depressing…as the subject matter would dictate…but it’s well-made and features strong performances. The kind of movie you can put on and…enjoy probably isn’t the right word…but you can watch it. You might connect to its dark story of a man dealing with the grief of his young child’s accidental death in a way that moves you. I’ll admit to getting a bit choked up by the resolution of the story. It’s hard not to when you’re dealing with a story with such a strong emotional core. But is this what we want from Shudder right now? To close out August with another solid, unspectacular exclusive that makes you kind of sad?
Like I said at the beginning…this isn’t The Twin’s fault. It was made with a passion for the subject…delves into a few interesting concepts…and features strong acting from its small cast. But it can’t help but feel emblematic of Shudder’s 2025 as a whole. Releases are beginning to feel tiered in a way that lets you know what is, and isn’t, important to the distributor. While some of the direct to streaming releases surpass the quality of a few of the films that take the theatrical route…none of them feel like big releases. Take a look at that direct to Shudder list of titles again and then compare it to past years. The change is obvious…and increasingly troubling.
The Twin doesn’t have to answer for that, of course. But…it’s saddled with it. Small releases, of which there are many excellent ones, are beginning to feel smaller. The longer the list of Shudder exclusive/original releases that top out at “pretty good” gets…the smaller they are going to feel. I’m not saying there’s an easy and obvious answer to any of this.
But one wonders what the goal here really is. The people most interested in Shudder’s content already subscribe to Shudder. Postponing release on the service is mostly going to double dip on their own customers. The movies they want most aren’t on the service they pay for yet…so they’ll have to pay again. If the goal was to get the films in front of people who don’t already subscribe…postponing the streaming release doesn’t actually affect that. In fact, a same day release strategy for more titles would probably increase subscriptions. Is it only about the double dipping on their already loyal customers?
The truth is it’s probably about FOMO. Horror has done big business at the box office in recent years. Shudder/AMC is probably terrified that they’ll mis out on the next big hit and squander an opportunity at millions of dollars in the process. It’s possible they’re right…and they only need to be right once. But it’s having a negative effect on the bigger picture. Devaluing the perceived value of their own service.
Many people won’t care about the several months wait to get the “bigger” Shudder movies on their app. Many won’t care as long as the price stays low, and Joe Bob keeps churning out more episodes of The Last Drive In. But we can’t completely ignore what’s happening because it is negatively impacting the movies that do debut on the streaming service.
Two years ago, The Twin would have popped up on Shudder and been seen as a pretty good addition to an already solid catalog. In 2025, The Twin’s unique lore of Fetches and its somber take on the worst kind of grief is stuck being just another release that can’t get over the hump of “pretty good”. What, in the past, would have stood out simply for being a bit different is relegated to feeling very similar. Even if the direct to streaming slate of films Shudder has unleashed in 2025 deal with different subjects…they are all dealing with the same external problem.
“That was a decent little movie” has become “I can see why that one wasn’t put into theaters”. By pre-categorizing their inventory…Shudder has unintentionally lowered the value of their streaming debuts. It’s going to take several “that was a really good movie” responses to change that narrative. Unfortunately, any potential “really good” stuff is earmarked for a bigger release than Shudder. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
Scare Value
If you’re in the mood for a pretty good little horror movie about unimaginable grief…The Twin has what you’re after. The backstory is interesting…the lead performance is strong…the ending is emotional. The total package is perfectly fine. In many ways, The Twin is a large part of what Shudder used to be known for. Pretty good independent horror releases finding a perfect home amongst a catalog of genre films the service’s target audience will appreciate. We’d just appreciate if that audience was targeted more often…with more anticipated releases than it currently sees fit to dole out. The Twin has nothing to apologize for. Shudder might…for lowering the perception of the exclusives and originals it sends straight to streaming.
2.5/5
The Twin Link
Streaming on Shudder
