Quick horror movie review - THE MANOR directed by Axelle Carolyn

After suffering a mild stroke, Judith Albright reluctantly moves into a historic nursing home where she becomes convinced a supernatural force is killing the residents.

Starring

The Manor is a movie with a traditional thread: a nursing home where, once you get in, you can’t get out. Barbara Hershey, the protagonist, decides by herself to join the Manor, because she’s diagnosed with Parkinson and doesn’t want her family to see her fall mentally.

She only has her daughter and her grandson (Nicholas Alexander) left. Her daughter is resentful with her for having taken care of her son when she was breaking down for losing her husband, resulting in now, grandma and grandson, having a very close relationship. Therefore, she’s happy her mother leaves to be “taken care of”. Lovely, right?

Well, without spoiling anything (everything I’m saying is in the trailer), once the old lady is in that house, she witnesses how something horrific is hunting down the residents, but she’s trapped because they hold her alluding she’s losing her mind.

My opinion? The first 3/4 of the movie is an “okay movie”. I mean, it keeps the tension and I like the characters in the manor, they’re all nuts, but nothing really happens after almost the end of the movie, which has a good turn! I didn’t expect it, honestly, because the rest of the movie had been so predictable.

The tone is so gloomy, the manor is hauntingly beautiful and they have chosen actors with very special… features, so to speak, which makes it interesting. It awakes your curiosity.

One thing that made me nervous is the fact that in most of the movie you’re kept in a string but they don’t give you much, it was making me sadder than interested. Also, the main nurse is pretty rude and harsh with her, I thought “well, if you want to trap people making them stay, you should be nicer than that ma’am…” I guess the goal was to show something was wrong in that nursery home but the director shouldn’t have to underline that, the context and scenario should talk by themselves.

In my opinion, a super nice nurse with a wide smile that hides a psychotic mind is way scarier than one that shouts to you “Back to sleep !!! you’re behaving like a child!!!” Does it make any sense?

Anyways! That was just a sidenote.

Okay, I liked it, but not REEEEAAAALLY scary. It’s a movie for those people who are too scared of watching a terrifying movie. A middle step between thriller and horror, I’d say (if you ignore the creature hunting people down though. It doesn’t appear much anyway).

Give it a go, it’s free on Prime Video. Soft but interesting movie.