The Twin Review: Horror Attempts To Subvert Expectations With Some Success
Shudder is the best place to get one's horror fix when the summer movie slate abandons horror fans for the lighter, more action-heavy fare. As a part of the streamer's annual Halfway to Halloween slate is The Twin, which hopes to entice fans of the horror classic The Omen and recent favorites like Orphan and Midsommar. The Twin follows a mother who must face a horrifying truth about the death of one of her sons after moving to an isolated rural town in Finland.
Teresa Palmer plays Rachel, a mother grieving the loss of one of her twins, Nathan (Tristan Ruggeri). Rachel struggles to carry on as a mother to her surviving son Elliot (also Ruggeri), while maintaining her marriage and overcoming the cultural hurdles that come with relocating to Finland. The home her husband Anthony (Steven Cree) moves his family to only exacerbates Rachel's bereavement. While haunted by reminders of her late son, her living one begins to act strangely.
Related: Taneli Mustonen & Aleksi Hyvärinen Interview: The Twin
The Twin is steeped in tropes such as the dynamic between wife and husband. Rachel is very much in the category of mothers who are often dismissed for their hysterics and called delusional when they see the truth for what it is. Anthony is the “why can’t I be married to a sane woman” type of husband. However, there is a solid attempt by screenwriters Taneli Mustonen (who also directed) and Aleksi Hyvärinen to subvert expectations. It takes some time, but the seeds of the truth behind Nathan’s death and Rachel’s mental decline are expertly planted, though there is a struggle to have these ideas flourish in the third act.
Palmer proves once again she is a horror star. With her facial expressions, she can convey a range of emotions as
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