Unwelcome review.
Unwelcome arrives on Shudder June 23. A folk horror tale which takes a funny turn but doesn’t quite change tone to match. There’s fun to be had here, however.
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Unwelcome
Directed by Jon Wright
Written by Mark Stay and Jon Wright
Starring Hannah John-Kamen, Douglas Booth, Colm Meaney, Kristian Nairn and Chris Walley
Unwelcome Review
Unwelcome is an enjoyable folk horror movie that makes some strange choices both narratively and tonally. It shares a chromosome or two with the recent release The Tank. Unwelcome does many things better than that film…but finds some new missteps to keep it from achieving the level that it should. If you can look past them, however, you’ll find a fun watch here.
The Tank was about a small family that moves to an inherited rural home and accidentally unleashes something evil. So is Unwelcome. There are slight variations, of course…but the basic set up is the same. The Tank relied on its excellent creature effects to entertain. Unwelcome has creatures too…it just doesn’t fully understand how to unleash them.
Folk horror has been a fairly hot genre of late. You won’t fine anything as entertaining as The Witch, Satan’s Slaves or Hellbender here. You won’t even find anything as interesting as Enys Men. Most of that is the movie’s own fault. It has a basic plot but gives itself an opening for wildly entertaining hijinks. Then it mostly passes on providing them.
That’s the frustrating aspect of Unwelcome. It’s folklore centers around impish creatures called Red Caps. They are kept at bay by a daily offering of meat. Which, of course, someone forgets to do. The Red Caps are hilarious little buggers. We’ve talked about the ups and (mostly) downs of the post-Gremlins era of little monsters. Unwelcome gives us some pretty great ones. And it fails to change tone to unleash them properly. Had it become an all-out comedy after the Red Caps start rampaging…they’d have really had something good. Instead, Unwelcome continues to play it too straight. Leaving us with a movie that feels more like Leprechaun than Gremlins.
That’s not to say there isn’t any fun to be had in the climax. The Red Caps get their moments to shine, albeit against a darker backdrop than called for. Unwelcome has a decent resolution that almost justifies its commitment to a dower tone…but you’ll end up having rather watched what is hinted at than what you end up with.
The other strange thing about Unwelcome is the way that it handles its main characters. The story begins with Jamie (Douglas Booth) and his pregnant wife Maya (Hannah John Kamen) attacked in their urban home. After inheriting their new rural place…the script never pays off the PTSD aspect that it clings to throughout the story. Jamie has scenes where he breaks down over his inability to protect them. This never leads to any growth where he finds his redemption. It’s weird.
Maya is the true main character in Unwelcome. Jamie’s lack of arc could be easier to digest if her arc was better. Her arc is more interesting…but it doesn’t really make any more sense. The Red Caps arrive due to her failure to heed a warning. In the third act she fails to listen again and does the exact opposite of what she should do. It leads to an entertaining conclusion…but not a good character moment.
Colm Meaney is on hand as the “Daddy” of the Whalen family. They are tasked with doing work on the property, but genre fans know right away they’re around to provide two things to the story. Threat and fodder. The family is good at delivering both. It’s a creepy bunch that gives our leads a real-world threat. Later, they play their role as entertaining fodder for the Red Caps. This is the highlight of Unwelcome. The moments it lets its more cartoony characters (the Whalens and the Red Caps) off the leash a bit. There are some very entertaining moments here.
Unwelcome is a movie that has good ideas and struggles to make them as entertaining as possible. There are moments that work so well that the ones that don’t become more annoying. The cast does a fine job. It’s a well-made movie. It just feels like they wrote a serious screenplay and didn’t see how wacky their monsters would be until they showed up on set…unwilling to do a rewrite.
Scare Value
Unwelcome sometimes feels like it doesn’t know that it’s being funny. That doesn’t prevent you from enjoying it…but it does create an odd feeling. It’s almost as if the script was written for a serious film and then they realized the antagonists were hilarious after the fact. Despite the strange tone…Unwelcome has enough fun to warrant a watch.
2.5/5
Unwelcome Links
Streaming on Shudder June 23
Rent/Buy on VOD from VUDU and Amazon
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
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