Parenting can be hard, especially when your child is basically the son of Hades.
When a young boy (Luke David Blumm) falls ill to a mysterious illness, his mother (Andi Matichak) must decide how far she will go to protect him from terrifying forces in her past.
I’m sure every parent has jokingly said that their child is the devil’s spawn. Sadly, for Halloween’s Andi Matichak, that statement is nothing but the truth in Son, where she has more than a Rosemary’s Baby type problem on her hands.
Writer/Director Ivan Kavanagh does his best at trying to keep the audience uncertain on whether our Matichak is haunted by supernatural peril or is just plain delusional. The film does fall a little short on this and sometimes suffers from striking an oddly earnest tone (despite some cool gory bits) without necessarily being very convincing when it should have gone straight to nerve-jangling suspense.
Matichak and Blumm give strong performances but having a mother’s love as the central plot point, the film doesn’t put enough emphasis on the question there was ever a “cult” at all – or if Matichak is experiencing extreme PTSD from a trauma she has repressed all these years. As key as it may be, that issue should generate more tension throughout the film than it does.
Overall, Son is twisty, violent, well-constructed with an incredible cast that should easily hold the viewer’s attention. At the same time, a story involving a child fathered by a literal demon could have made a better impression than it did. Kavanagh has made a horror movie that isn’t as scary as it could have been and plays out more like a drama. Son is now available on all digital platforms, so go check it out for yourself.
What did you think of the film? Sound off in the comments.
