While a filmmaker who commits to their premise is usually worth commending, The Front Room repels the viewer towards condemning it.

Written and directed by Sam and Max Eggers, siblings of auteur filmmaker Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse), The Front Room is pitched as a horror movie starring the “step mother-in-law from hell”.  For Norman (Andrew Burnap) and his pregnant wife Belinda (Brandy Norwood, still struggling with her acting resurgence following Netflix’s Best. Christmas. Ever!), this truth is revealed early on when Norman’s estranged and indecent stepmother Solange (Poor Things’ Kathryn Hunter) reenters his life.  Belinda is hastily made aware of Solange’s judgemental qualities and nasty prejudices yet, cautiously, Belinda takes everything with a grain of salt.  When Solange needs to move in, Belinda barely bats an eye despite the new presence imposing on preparations for their new baby.  But like a fog slowly rolling over a bog, Solange starts to infect her way into her stepson’s family.

Adapting from Susan Hill’s short story of the same name, the Eggers fail at connecting their movie with the viewer.  This dramatic horror is a derivative flick that exhausts character clichés and genre tropes.  When the filmmakers decide to toy around with elements of high camp and dark comedy within the dynamic between Belinda and Solange, the results build towards a mess – literally.  Hunter, overplaying how withered Solange is and emulating the gargling speech pattern of Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Meatwad, never stops irritating the audience with her needy and callous personality.  Any type of tension is smothered due to the sheer repetition of how agonizing Hunter’s performance, and how desperate these amateur filmmakers are for a reaction.

Max Eggers co-wrote The Lighthouse with his brother Robert and, now, the same annoying qualities that plagued the former gothic horror reoccur in The Front Room but, this time, with another brother.  I may have disliked The Front Room, but it made me want to see what Sam and Robert Eggers could collaborate on.  As for Max, he can go to his room until he’s ready to smarten up.

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Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie