The Gift

[Potential spoilers; read at your own risk]

This movie is full of suspense, but it's not nearly as scary as you'd expect. While watching it, you feel like so much could go wrong. And, in a way, it does. However, in the end everyone is kind of able to go on as if nothing had happened, except that they are never going to forget that it did happen.

The movie focuses on a young couple, Simon and Robyn, who have just bought a new house in the husband's hometown. There, they meet a man named Gordo who was bullied by the husband in high school. Gordo becomes fixated on his bully managin to have such a perfect life. However, we learn it is not all perfect since the couple lost their first child and are hesitant to keep trying to have another. Gordo also becomes attached to, and perhaps fascinated with, Robyn. He keeps leaving gifts for them and visiting with them, but the couple get scared by how obsessed he is with them.

As time moves forward, they seem to keep their distance from Gordo. Robyn is finally expecting a child, and the couple is happy in their new home. However, Gordo remains a terror to Simon. Robyn realizes that her husband has been keeping tabs on the man, and digs into what exactly happened between them in school, leaving her appalled at her own husband's actions.

When the child is finally born, Gordo leaves a baby carrier with three gifts for Simon. Robyn is upset, but essentially unaffected by everything that has happened between Simon and Gordo. Simon, on the other hand is left to question whether his new little boy is actually the last of Gordo's gifts.

The characters in this are all so troubled, but I wound up hating both of the men and just feeling so bad for Robyn because she got caught in the middle of a conflict that didn't involve her. Plus, she ends up afraid of her husband and a man who started out as a friend. It would appear that the poor girl was in a failing marriage right from the beginning, and yet they fought so hard to make it work.

This movie leaves you on the edge of your seat, always expecting things to blow up in a big way, but they never do until the very end. The thing that this film does well is to create fear and suspense by leaving questions unanswered.

As far as horror movies go, I found this one fascinating. It left me spinning, trying to find answers, without leaving me scared out of my mind. That's my kind of horror. However, it is so emotionally taxing that I wouldn't be able to watch it often, should I choose to watch it again.