Stephanie

The first half of the movie is about a young girl, alone in her house, except for her brother's corpse. There's a monster, which we only see as shadowy outlines, or hear as roars, that seems able to enter and leave the house as it pleases.

So you wonder how long the kid can survive. We see her living off whatever preserves and jams her parents had canned, but that's running low. The power is going out (I was amazed when she set up all those candles that it didn't burn the house down), she's had near misses with the blender, and it seems like just a matter of time.

Then her parents return, and things actually get worse. The monster doesn't stay away. Her brother won't stay buried, and her parents are having discussions Stephanie only catches pieces of, and doesn't fully understand. Although she might understand enough to realize they don't have any sure answers to the problem.

I should have seen the big reveal coming, looking back. My mistake was assuming there were two different forces at work, and then trying to figure out how things worked from there. I'm impressed that it puts the threat in a different light, but doesn't really change the stakes, that Stephanie's parents are still trying to do their best by their daughter against something they don't understand.

Frank Grillo and Anna Torv give solid performances as the parents. There's an awkwardness to their interactions with Stephanie that seemed odd at first, but makes a lot more sense as you learn a few things. I thought Shree Cooks was excellent as the title character, especially in the first half of the film when it's just her talking to herself and her stuffed turtle. There are some interesting lighting and staging shots that make the house seem very different when it's just Stephanie there compared to once her parents show up. The rooms seem smaller, more constricting later in the film, than early on, when it's just a kid living there and we're seeing things more from her perspective.