The Twin is directed by Taneli Mustonen, and the cast includes Teresa Palmer, Steven Cree, Barbara Marten, Tristan Ruggeri, Andres Dvinjaninov
My Thoughts On The Twin
The Twin is a Finnish horror film that will offer you little more than a checklist of familiar tropes. It's a film that doesn’t attempt to build any sort of unique identity, and even the ideas it borrows from better films are handled without much care or creativity.
The story centers on Rachel (Teresa Palmer), a mother grieving the loss of one of her twin sons, Nathan, after a tragic car accident. Her surviving son, Elliot, becomes the center of her life, while her relationship with her husband Anthony (Stephen Cree) slowly falls apart.
Hoping to escape their trauma, the family moves to a remote village in Finland , Anthony’s childhood home, and settles into a large, old rectory, and soon after, unsettling things begin to happen.
The setup isn't actually to bad, and it could’ve led to a pretty interesting psychological horror or an emotional exploration of grief.
Instead, the film leans on overused horror elements without offering anything new or insightful. It draws clear influence from other much better movies, and just recycles familiar ideas with poor execution, and just becomes quite boring as a result.
Director Taneli Mustonen does make some effort to create tension with camera movement, but it’s rarely enough to make anything even remotely memorable. The pacing is slow, but not in a way that builds suspense, it just drags.
Most of the film just follows Rachel as she either cries or screams her son’s name, leaving Teresa Palmer with little to do beyond repeating the same emotional beats over and over.
Then comes the film’s twist, a major shift in the story meant to reframe everything that came before, but unfortunately, it’s not only unearned but also undermines what little emotional weight the movie had built.
And it doesn’t stop there. After the reveal, there’s still 20 more minutes of flashbacks and explanations, as if the film doesn’t trust the audience to understand what just happened.
The Twin feels like a collection of horror ideas pasted together without a clear vision or purpose, as fails to engage either emotionally or intellectually.
It’s not the worst horror film ever made, just one of the most forgettable.