Isabelle (Movie review)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

PLOT: After flat-lining for one minute during childbirth, Larissa (Amanda Crew) is beset with a demonic presence hell-bent on possessing her body.

REVIEW: It can only be described as seven years bad luck for Canadian cinematic jack-of-all-trades, Rob Heydon, who’s indolently titled and ire-inducing new possession movie ISABELLE, his first feature since 2011, is most certainly a sophomore slump of infuriating proportions. I’m not one for superstitions, but I’m convinced Heydon must have cracked a mirror not too long ago. Perhaps even in his previous drug movie, ECSTASY. Sadly, this is the only persuasive morsel of redemption to be found in ISABELLE (2018), save for a couple of decent central turns and a pretty compelling score by fellow Canadian Mark Korven (THE WITCH, THE LIGHTHOUSE). Beyond that, Heydon maddeningly presents a charade of unpleasant subject matter, sobering stillbirth, in a way that is never made fun, amusing, or at all enjoyable to watch. Worse, there’s a staid and soporific quality to the first hour or so of the film results in a focally numbing bore for long stretches of its already short, sub-80 minute runtime. And when the movie does finally pick up the pace in the final act, whatever dynamic action that is finally mounted becomes utterly sullied by a nonsensical story resolution that feels as if one large, unfunny prank has been pulled on you, and without your consent. The coup de gras though? At no point does ISABELLE offer a single genuine or original scare.

We begin in contemporary Saratoga Springs, New York. Young lovers Matt (Adam Brody) and Larissa Kane (Crew) are expecting a newborn any day and have just moved into a new home to welcome the addition. Matt’s an attorney, Larissa a pianist and music teacher. As they move in, we sense that a stock-standard creepy old lady next door, who turns out to be named Ann Pelway (Sheila McCarthy), is up to no good. When Larissa spots Ann’s supposedly startling crippled daughter, Isabelle (Zoe Belkin), leering out of the second-story window at her, she immediately falls to the ground in a painfully gory childbirth. Whisked to the hospital, Larissa flat-lines for one minute, during which she witnesses a hellish purgatorial sight, before coming back to the light, so to speak. When she comes to, she learns that she and Matt have lost their baby in a stillbirth. Rightly devastated and wracked by PTSD and past trauma relating to her parents, Larissa turns to pills to numb her pain. She begins to hear her dead baby crying. She starts seeing ghastly apparitions. The grief is proving to be too much. I really wish the movie continued to till this fertile ground (no pun), exploring the fractious psychological hold such profound grief can have on a young mother. Unfortunately, the movie wants to be another movie altogether, and really only uses such a premise to become another fecklessly rote possession film that not only offers nothing new to the subgenre, but totally squanders a potentially interesting story in so doing.

Indeed. We soon learn Isabelle suffered a terrible car accident years prior that left her in a vegetative state. Worse, her father abused her on several counts of satanic ritual. Ipso facto, Isabelle has been channeling a demonic spirit that intends to evade her smelly ghoulish façade (yeah, this ghost reeks) and enter Larissa’s body. But only after trying to enter Larissa’s baby at first. Sound confounding? It is. The script by Donald Martin (THE CRAIGSLIST KILLER, THE HUNT FOR THE BTK KILLER) wants to be a grieving-mother-psychological thriller as well as a satanic possession film. The problem is neither angle is satisfactorily squared on its own, and when they’re forcibly combined in the third act in the last-ditch attempt to create something new, all we’re left with is a irksomely jumbled reel of confusion. Now, we might be able to forgive the muddled story beats if the titular ghost were at all frightening. But its design is so generically uninspired that borders on parody. The wan skin, long black hair, hunched over frame, burning red-eyes and silent evil staring was painfully overplayed back in 2005, so to see it so prominently in 2019 conjures less authentic terror than the chuckles induced from say, SCARY MOVIE 5.

If there is any honest reason to see ISABELLE, it’s for the dedicated performances by Crew and Brody, who give their near-all to a script that clearly does not deserve it. I always thought Crew was the low-key heart and soul of Silicon Valley, and here she does a credible job in the scenes that require her to express the unthinkably grievous loss, the worst loss conceivable, a mother can have. Same goes for Brody as Matt, particularly the emotional scenes shared between he and his father Clifford (Booth Savage). With lesser conviction from lower caliber actors, the film would be insufferable to sit through. But because Crew and Brody commit and fully immerse themselves into their characters, the laughable lunacy of the plot feels a bit more excusable. Between the performances and the noticeably effective film score by Mark Korven, which adds an alarmingly intangible quality to the overall experience in the way it catches your ear and stays there, ISABELLE does have a few compelling facets, but nowhere near enough to warrant a legit recommendation. I haven’t even addressed the “twist” ending, which all but amounts to a time-wasting, sadomasochistic slap in the face. Discover it at your own peril if you dare, but even with its pranksome ending, ISABELLE offers very little we haven’t seen before.