I USED TO THINK IT WAS the parents’ fault if their child was acting inappropriately. However, I came to realize after a certain age, the child may just not be a nice person. There is so much involved with raising a child, inside and outside factors, that at times, it almost seems like a crapshoot to me. There was a kid in my class who the teacher thought was such a sweet child. I remember sitting farther back in class and just watching with bewilderment how this student could so easily fool our teacher. Outside at recess time, I tried staying away from him because he was always picking on kids or calling them names. Once after school, I remember seeing him in a fistfight with another student. Before there was a victor, a teacher broke it up. Through my friends, I heard two different sides to the story behind the fight. Because it was after school, both boys did not get in trouble. I would have thought just being in a fight would have put an inkling of doubt in our teacher’s mind, but nothing changed. In the classroom, this kid was always sickly sweet when communicating with our teacher, always referring to her as Ma’am or Miss ____ (last name). Once outside of the classroom, he was a mean bully.      I DID NOT HAVE THE ABILITY to hide my true feelings like he did. If I did not like someone, I simply stayed away from them. My family and I would visit a couple who had a boy close to my age. There was something about him that made me uncomfortable. He was aggressive; if we played catch outside, he would always throw the ball hard at me. I remember one time there was some type of party going on at his house. During the festivities he took a knife out of the kitchen drawer and went upstairs to one of the bedrooms that had guests’ coats piled on the bed. When I saw what he was starting to do, I told him it was wrong, but he did not listen to me. He was going through a few coats and cutting a hole in the pockets of each one. Afraid I would get in trouble if someone came upstairs, I left him and went back down. I thought of telling his or my parents but was scared if he got into trouble then he would do something to me. After that incident, I considered him “bad” and tried not to do too much with him whenever we were together. Knowing me, I also absolutely would not want to be with the young girl in this horror thriller.      AFTER KIDNAPPING THE DAUGHTER OF A POWERFUL businessperson, a group of criminals were instructed to hide with her in an abandoned mansion until her father paid the ransom. Only a few hours passed before the criminals realized ballet was not the only thing the young girl was obsessed about. With Melissa Barrera (Scream franchise, In the Heights) as Joey, Dan Stevens (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, The Guest) as Frank, Alisha Weir (Matilda: The Musical, Don’t Leave Home) as Abigail, William Catlett (A Thousand and One, The Devil You Know) as Rickles and Kathryn Newton (Lisa Frankenstein, Freaky) as Sammy; many of you know I am not a fan of horror films. But I must tell you, this twisted tale surprisingly entertained me. Yes, there were scenes of blood, gore, and violence; but they were so close to being over-the-top, that it almost became comical. I thought Alisha did a wonderful job of acting while the director kept things moving along in the story. There were, however, a few holes in the script where logic was left out in the story, causing me at times to just sit there perplexed. Nonetheless, I still was entertained by the twists and turns of good vs evil, family drama and the facets of the little ballet dancer.     

3 stars