Z

Shudder Reviews

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My first Shudder review was a sort of quick draw from a hat when I needed to find something last-minute. According to a few sources, apparently this imaginary friend horror flick is one of the better titles on this streaming service. Whether or not I completely agree is hard to say, considering how many more Shudder originals I actually haven't seen yet. But with that said, this film certainly does bring with it a sort of vibe that I haven't felt with something like this in a while.

Things start out in this movie as pretty typical. An eight-year-old boy named Josh (Jett Klyne) starts playing with an imaginary friend he calls "Z" (that's the American "Zee" as opposed to our Canadian "Zed"). At first, his parents, Kevin (Sean Rogerson) and Beth (Keegan Connor Tracy) sort of roll with it, but soon enough, Josh starts getting into big trouble at school, and the idea of Z existing seems to be a bad influence on his behaviour - like, dangerously bad. In many ways, Josh's character is a bit like Damien of 'The Omen' in that he's successfully creepily innocent when we know about the bad he does. This is a kid to keep an eye on, having been in several other things and showing a fair bit of range for his age.

Getting back to the plot, however, I'm happy to say that things do take a pretty interesting turn from the typical. Usually, in a movie like this, it's pretty much about the family (namely the adults) having to overcome a haunting more so than a kid's actual imaginary friend (in other words, the friend tends to be an angry ghost). But in this case, Z comes tih a bit of a history, and he's actually seemingly more attached to Beth than Josh. The way things unfold is ultimately creepy, and carries some significantly matching imagery with it (along with a few standard jump scares). For what the movie is, I thought it did a good job in veering away from just being another ghost movie.

Let me just forewarn that the following paragraph may contain spoilers, but I'm gonna try to tip-toe around them as best I can. I think a key element to talk about to the film's credit is that one might very well see this movie as a bit of an analogy for domestic abuse and what one might put up with just to protect her son. Another take on it has to do with the representation of mental health problems and the idea there's a sort of draw to succumb to them that's hard for us to help. One could just as easily say that people are reading too much into things, but the idea of an imaginary friend does speak to a matter of the mind as opposed to something physically there. I found Z represented more of a negative influence than a spirit of any sort. It's all just theoretical, but it's interesting to think about.

This one comes to us from a lesser known writer/director, Brandon Christensen, whose name may not ring any bells other than if you've ever heard of a film called 'Still/Born'. However, his co-writer on the project is Colin Minihan, who worked on the 'Grave Encounters' films (which I quite enjoyed) and can partially also be thanked (or blamed, we'll see how things go) for the upcoming 'Spiral' film (which could just as easily be called 'Saw 9'). Otherwise, if you're looking for any sort of big names attached to it, you won't really find any. Everything here is talent to keep an eye on rather than being well-established. But I might recommend this to anyone looking for a quick hide-under-the-blankets type thriller. It's typical in some ways, but there are certainly some interesting things about it nonetheless.

3/5

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