Quinn Lasher's directorial debut (and probably swansong) He's Out There seems like the result of someone programming a bot to watch 10,000 hours of horror films and write its own. This movie is so blatantly dull and lazy that I feel like a student film could accomplish more in 6 minutes, least of all be creative in the slightest. I'm not sure whose strings had to be pulled to get Yvonne Strahovski to star in this movie, but her decent performance was utterly wasted thanks to a horrible script and any smidgen of originality that could have existed. There is no excuse for how painfully bad this was and in a current culture of some fantastic horror stories, independent films like this need to take enormous creative risks to stand out.
Yvonne Strahovski stars as Laura, a wife and mother of two who is heading to a remote cabin near what appears to be Crystal Lake for a one-weekend-a-year vacation. Accompanied by her kids Kayla (Anna Pniowsky) and Maddie (Abigail Pniowsky), the three wait for the father Shawn (Justin Bruening) to arrive at a later time for whatever reason. And, of course, there is an axe-wielding killer lurking in the neighboring woods that is seeking out revenge with no motivations whatsoever. If any of these plot elements or character choices seem familiar, perhaps it is because the same, formulaic premise has been utilized thousands of times before. The script throughout this movie (and I'll spare the name of the screenwriter) is duller than anything I have ever seen before. The reason that I could not stand this film so much was the pure mediocrity and laziness of it all. When I decide to switch on a mind-numbing horror film from Netflix, I expect to at least be entertained. Whether or not the story is completely original, I would like for there to be one - just one - aspect of the story that is new. It can be a goofy CGI monster (The Ritual) or it can even be just a weird cult that doesn't necessarily have to make sense (The Endless). Both of those films were generic as all hell, but at least they merely attempted to do something fresh. Every plot point, every character choice, and every beat of He's Out There was nothing more than laughably predictable. I could go into full detail about why every part of the writing in this movie made absolutely no sense, but that would be too big of a waste of time.
Quinn Lasher's directing in this film is the other of its biggest issues. This is quite literally the only project that he has ever worked on in any role of filmmaking. Maybe I would trust him to handle a movie if he had at least any bit of credit, but his experience amounts to nothing and it painfully shows. I assume when Lasher was directing this film that he just had Friday the 13th playing on a small TV next to him as this film is practically a re-creation of that 1980 classic. From the generic plot of hunting down a group of people to the design of the killer's face mask (mummy? Jason? Hush from Batman?), this film takes absolutely no creative decisions. When it comes to the handling of the killer, the suspense was only built up when he was not shown. This is always the case for any typical slasher film, but Lasher apparently was not aware of that. The fact that the masked murderer was shown very early on took so much away from the horror aspect of the story. Rick Shaine's editing was also atrocious, as I do not think that man has ever heard of color correction. This movie did not even have the aesthetic style of a horror film and did not work in the slightest. The one decent aspect of this film that I can confidently say that it achieved was that it was indeed... a movie. It was effectively made and the crew seemed to know what they were doing.
He's Out There is not only the title of this film but it also practically sums up the frustrating ambiguity of its plot. Despite the fact that this movie is *barely* sufferable, I could not stop laughing at the horrendous script and overall design of this entire production. If you have seen any C-grade horror film from the past few decades, then you have seen this one already. Spare yourself the time.
My Rating: ★
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