You’ll Never Find Me is a Shudder original that had me, then lost me, then found me again, and ultimately lost me. It’s so well-crafted on a visual and audible front that I’m actively annoyed it felt it needed to drag itself out for a hundred minutes. They could have shaved off forty-five and and had an effective thriller.

The flick is about a woman who comes knocking on the door of a trailer home one dark and stormy night. The owner lets her in and they proceed to talk and talk and talk while the storm rages and the trailer creeks. That’s the movie.

For the first, I dunno, half an hour I was engaged in the film’s oppressive atmosphere. The acting was pretty good and I was going along with the mystery of what’s really going on. Both characters express cryptic vibes and I wasn’t sure what kind of movie I was in.

But eventually whatever in hell is going on just kept going on and on and on. You can keep me in suspense only so long before you lose me. When there are no ups and downs, no explanations, no concrete clues, no crescendo, then it’s a big ask to try to keep me in suspense and have me care. I went from curios to bored while they continued to dangle whatever invisible carrot the whole time.

Eventually they start to get to the point… at about an hour and ten minutes into the film. But what’s really going on seems to shift and adapt to the point it’s basically impossible to find a central core or meaning. And when we do finally get an answer, it makes various things the characters did earlier in the film make very little sense. It cheats.

And the ultimate reveal… was an interesting and suspenseful sequence, but then there’s another ultimate reveal that made me shrug. OK – maybe some of that happened, maybe not? I dunno. Roll the dice and maybe you’ll hit on something concrete. <shrug>

I dig this film’s attempt at a taut, two person, single location thriller but they overextended themselves. A shorter, more condensed film would have been great. I was all over the place with my rating… can’t say I enjoyed the full length experience but appreciate the filmmaking.

Score: 71