Alone (Movie Review)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

PLOT: A grieving woman seeks peace and quiet in a cabin in the woods, but instead finds herself surrounded by violence and death.

REVIEW: Director Vladislav Khesin's ALONE starts off with Emma (Elizabeth Arends), a blind woman with a tragic past, arriving at an isolated cabin in the woods, where she's hoping to get enough peace and quiet that she'll be able to focus on writing a book that her therapist suggests could help her get closure on the loss of her child. Emma is given a tour of the place and informed that she won't be able to get a cell phone signal there… and not long after she has settled in, strange things begin to occur. Items are moved around, the security alarm goes off for no apparent reason, Emma hears noises in the cabin. ALONE starts to look rather predictable. Clearly this is going to be a slow-burn movie about someone playing cat and mouse with a vulnerable woman who is unable to reach out for help. I was getting prepared to watch a movie that would primarily consist of scenes in which the camera follows Emma around the cabin and we wait for something to finally happen.

But then ALONE threw me for a loop, and it was quite welcome. I was not enthustiastic about the idea of spending an entire movie with Emma, because I found the character to be odd and distant. She was not a lead I could connect with, there was something off-putting about her. Thankfully, the film shifts gears about 25 minutes in, beginning with an event that seems to be along the lines of the Marion Crane twist in Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO. That film followed the Marion character for a large chunk of its running time, it looked like she was going to be the lead throughout, and then the shower scene happened. Here Emma runs into trouble, then a whole new batch of characters are introduced.

Those characters are Hailey (Sara Anne) and Jesse (Bailey Coppola), the college-age son and daughter of the cabin's owners, who have brought some friends and love interests for a short stay at this cabin Hailey and Jesse grew up in. With their introduction, ALONE becomes a slasher movie, as it seems that whoever was tormenting Emma has decided to knock this group off one-by-one. And since I love slashers, they're my favorite sub-genre of horror, I was suddenly much more interested in this movie, as I'd rather watch a body count movie than a slow-burn thriller.

But that's not to say ALONE becomes a particularly good slasher. In fact, the way most of the death scenes are handled is really underwhelming. Still, if you stick with it and wait for the entire story crafted by writers Samuela Bandeira, Gabriel Legua, and Olabode Olakanmi to play out, you might be able to forgive the movie for hiding the kills from us at first.

I wasn't always on board with what was going on here and I didn't like or care about most of the characters, but there was one element that kept me fascinated throughout – the presence of Bailey Coppola in the cast and his performance as Jesse. Coppola is the nephew of Nicolas Cage, and there are times when he looks exactly like a young version of his legendary uncle. It's no surprise to see that when Cage played a character named Frank in a movie called A SCORE TO SETTLE last year, Coppola was cast to play "Young Frank". Watching Coppola in ALONE was sort of like being able to see a VALLEY GIRL era Cage in a slasher movie, and I was delighted to have the opportunity. Making it even better, Coppola proves to be a somewhat eccentric actor himself, making unique choices and gestures. And yes, Khesin gave Coppola the chance to play a "flip out" scene along the lines of what his uncle is well known for. His flipping out skills aren't on the level of his uncle's, but give him a few decades to catch up.

Aside from Coppola, ALONE is very average. The most notable thing about the direction is a couple nice uses of reflective surfaces. The writing isn't great, and events are sometimes downright confusing. I was left feeling that the movie was "not bad", and that's the most positive thing I can say about it. I'm not sure I'd ever watch it again, except as part of a Bailey Coppola career retrospective – because now I'm hoping he'll continue following in his uncle's footsteps for a long time to come.

The end credits start rolling at just 76 minutes, so ALONE won't take up too much of your time if you decide to check it out. It would have been shorter, but twists and turns in the climax require some flashbacks to earlier events to show us things from different perspectives, and instead of making this quick Khesin chose to do a Cliff's Notes recap of the whole movie, providing new information while showing us way too many moments we had already seen. It's padded out, but even then the movie is just 80 minutes total.

ALONE is available to rent or purchase through Amazon at THIS LINK.