On the surface, you could look at the new thriller “Shut-In” for what it is: an extremely cliched piece of ridden trash, or you can bypass the plethora of cheap-gimmick plot devices we’ve seen a million times and just go with the flow. I was in the latter, and for that I feel that puts my credibility in jeopardy. Oh well. Naomi Watts returns to the horror game as Mary Portman, a child psychologist that has been living an isolated life in the woods of New England with her paralyzed, almost brain dead, son Stephen (Charlie Heaton of “Stranger Things” fame - make his big screen debut). Except things start to run amuck when a small fragile boy named Tom (Jacob Tremblay from “Room”) disappears in the wilderness ahead of, what’s supposed to be, a deadly winter storm. And all of a sudden, weird and strange-like paranormal occurrences start taking place in her secluded home. Now the real question becomes is Portman hallucinating too much? Or is something fishy actually going on?

For a while the gears never really start to grind for the film until about mid-way, when the plot bends sideways. The film presents a good twist, but it requires you to throw any logic out the window (as that’s usually mandatory for your enjoyment in a low-grade picture like this). Whatever your poison, “Shut-In” is not a good movie, but one I could tolerate, because of the flashy thrills it tries to lay upon. And Watts is good enough to the point where she can elevate the material just enough to where it feels like it’s better than what it is, even if the audience (just think of any 14 year old) can’t understand the difference. Even better news, is that “Shut-In” only runs a quick 90 minutes, which is good because if it had been any longer, I would have gone brain dead too.

C