Parents' Guide to Separation

This "imaginary friend" horror movie takes its time and tries hard to focus on relationships and emotions, but the characters still feel somehow stiff and flat, as if they were only half-finished. Coming from the director of the passable horror movie The Boy and its awful sequel, Brahms: The Boy II, Separation feels as if it genuinely wants to delve into the emotions surrounding divorce and death, which is something that this genre usually doesn't bother with. Characters talk about their feelings, but no one ever seems to really listen. It's as if the actors are merely practicing reading their lines back and forth at one another.

Separation includes some interesting, creepy imagery via the movie's comic book art and several related puppets and sculptures, but it's still very low on scares. When the monster finally appears, looking like a scary clown, its design is all too similar to so many other monsters -- doing crab walks, twisting its head around, making clicking noises, etc. It's old hat. If that's not blah enough, the movie adds a seemingly random, last-minute twist that feels cheap and somewhat insulting, as well as one of those post-credits "buttons" that sets up a possible sequel. It's a shame that a movie that could have been an ambitious attempt to try something new ends up devolving into something so lazy and familiar.