 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Adalynn • Year: 2023 • Country: USA • Director: Jacob Byrd • Main cast: Sydney Carvill, Wade Baker, Janet Carter, Rob Shuster • Runtime: 88 minutes • Production company: Jacala Productions, Summer Hill Films (distribution) • TRAILER
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Adalynn (2023) is one of those movies that you feel excited about during the first seconds, with intense opening credits and exciting music. But, as soon as the movie presents its credentials and shows its real face, the excitement gets diluted at an alarming speed and soon, too soon, you realize this is going to be one of those tedious movies with a boring script, a simple idea that never was actually that good, and that was stretched out to achieve the commercial feature film length.
The movie centers on a young mother named Adalynn who after losing her first baby she is both joyful and terrified of her newborn. Her postpartum depression is heavier than the average, and she must face depression, grief, inner demons, and sinister impulses to try to keep her mind sane and her baby alive. Because, of course, her husband is out on a business trip and won’t be around to aid his wife in such important moments. This might sound like a promising starting point to build a horror movie with a twist, an evil entity taking advantage of the fragile situation of the mother and the newborn, some home invasion, or whatever. The problem is that is all there is.
For almost an hour and a half, we witness how this Adalynn character goes from crazy rampages to apparent sanity. A rollercoaster of emotions that includes cheesy tricks like wondering if the baby is alive, the illusion of someone breaking into the home, and as many cliches as you can imagine.
The actors might not be the best you can find in the business but little to nothing they can do to save the situation. The eerie atmospheric music that at first managed to create some sense of tension is soon wasted due to its overuse bringing nothing to the possible action happening on the screen. And the direction and plot development are so insipid and predictable that they could be done by any film school student.
Something very annoying in Adalynn (2023) is that the movie presented itself as a pretentious film, but it never brings anything outstanding to the picture. Postpartum depression is a real thing and can be a tricky disorder so, as such, it can bring dangerous psychotic episodes if it’s not treated well. But, here, everything is depicted in such a puerile way that nothing that happens to the protagonist seems plausible. Even with the setup of a history of medical drug use, the previous natural miscarriage, and the gone husband, nothing that happens to Adalynn makes sense.
And the icing on the cake for me was when after over an hour of a very tedious movie the main character comes out with this cheesy fake morals speech doing advocacy for mental drug taking as if this was a miserable pharmacy company advertisement. Obviously, those meds can help some people, and even become vital in many situations, but never under the prescription and supervision of a medical professional. Drugs culture at its best, the American way of life, be successful, beautiful, young, rich, make a family, don’t break the rules, purchase lots of useless items, own a gun in your home… Our society is rotten at many levels, and the American Dream is one of the worst ones in the first world countries. I know this is a mere personal opinion, but I think it was fair to share it.
Adalynn (2023) was a bad movie but the rancid morals at the end really killed me. And to wrap up the insanity, we get one of the worst closing credits songs I’ve heard in a long time. This is not a horror at all. This is just a lousy drama, overacting in the emotional parts and with an inexistent story. Not recommended at any cost.
RATE: 2/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15353442
