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A family heads to a secluded beach vacation. They speak vaguely of the passage of time in a way that parents often do with their children, as mom mentions how she can’t wait to hear her daughter’s singing voice when she grows up. Shortly thereafter, it’s revealed that mom may not be able to do that because she has a tumor and this could be a "last trip," either because of her physical health or the health of her crumbling marriage. The passage of time changes at different points in your life, but especially when you see your kids growing up too fast and when you worry you might not be able to witness the bulk of their journey. When M. Night Shyamalan’s “Old,” based on the book by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters, is playing thematically with those feelings and allowing itself to be surreal and scary in the process, it truly works. When it feels like it has to nail down specifics, such as in a disappointing final stretch, it crosses that median line into the silly lane. The mysteries of aging are something everyone considers—“Old” taps into those considerations with just enough style to engage before stepping back from its own edge.
The family in the opening scene consists of Guy ( Gael García Bernal ), Prisca ( Vicky Krieps ), Trent ( Nolan River ) and Maddox ( Alexa Swinton ). The resort manager tells them about a secluded beach where they can avoid the touristy crowds, and they’re taken there by none other than Shyamalan himself in maybe his most meta cameo (after all, he’s the director, assembling all of his players on the sandy stage). Guy and Prisca’s clan isn’t alone. They’re joined by a doctor named Charles ( Rufus Sewell ), his wife Chrystal ( Abbey Lee ), his mother Agnes ( Kathleen Chalfant ) and his daughter Kara ( Mikaya Fisher ). A third couple joins them in Jarin ( Ken Leung ) and Patricia ( Nikki Amuka-Bird ). All of the travelers meet a mysterious traveler at the beach when they arrive in a rapper named Mid-Sized Sedan ( Aaron Pierre ). And why is he bleeding from his nose? And is that a dead body?
From their arrival, the beauty of this beach, surrounded by steep stone, feels threatening. The waves crash and the rock wall almost seems to grow taller as the day goes on. When they try to walk back the way they came, they get faint and wake up on the beach again. And then things get really weird when Trent and Maddox are suddenly significantly older, jumping about five years in a couple hours. The adults figure out that every half-hour on this beach is like a year off of it. As the kids age into Alex Wolff , Eliza Scanlen , and the great Thomasin McKenzie , the adults face their own physical issues, including hearing/vision problems, dementia, and that damn tumor in Prisca’s body. Can they get off the beach before 24 hours age them 48 years?
What a clever idea. Rod Serling would have loved it. And “Old” is very effective when Shyamalan is being playful and quick with his high concept. “Old” doesn’t really feel like a traditional mystery. I never once cared about “figuring out” what was happening to this crew, enjoying “Old” far more as surreal horror than as a thriller that demanded explanations. Having said that, it sometimes feels like Shyamalan and his team have to pull punches to hold that PG-13. I wondered about the truly gruesome, Cronenberg version of this story that doesn’t shy away from what happens to the human body over time and doesn't feel a need to dot every 'i' and cross every 't'.
The actors all seem like they would have been willing to go on that more surreal journey. Most of the ensemble finds a way to push through a script that really uses them like a kid uses sand toys on a beach, moving them around before they wash away with the tide. Stand-outs include Sewell’s confused menace, McKenzie’s palpable fear (she nails that the best, by far, understanding she's in a horror movie more than some of the others), and the grounded center provided by Bernal and Krieps.
A director who often veers right when he should arguably go left, Shyamalan and his collaborators manage their tone here better than he has in years. Yes, the dialogue is clunky and almost entirely expositional regarding their plight and attempts to escape it, but that’s a feature, not a bug. “Old” should have an exaggerated, surreal tone and Shyamalan mostly keeps that in place, assisted greatly by some of the best work yet by his regular cinematographer Mike Gioulakis . The pair are constantly playing with perception and forced POV, fluidly gliding their camera up and down the beach as if it’s rushing to catch up with all the developments as they happen. Some of the framing here is inspired, catching a corner of a character’s head before revealing they’re now being played by a new actor. It’s as visually vibrant a film as Shyamalan has made in years, at its best when it's embracing its insanity. The waves are so loud and the rock wall is so imposing that they almost feel like characters.
Sadly, the film crashes when it decides to offer some sane explanations and connect dots that didn’t really need to be connected. There’s a much stronger version of “Old” that ends more ambiguously, allowing viewers to leave the theatre playing around with themes instead of unpacking exactly what was going on. The conversation around Shyamalan often focuses on his final scenes, and I found the ones in “Old” some of his most frustrating given how they feel oppositional to what works best about the movie. When his characters are literally trying to escape the passage of time, as people do when their kids are growing up too fast or they receive a mortality diagnosis, “Old” is fascinating and entertaining. It’s just too bad that it doesn’t age into its potential.
Brian Tallerico
Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.
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Rated PG-13 for strong violence, disturbing images, suggestive content, partial nudity and brief strong language.
108 minutes
Gael García Bernal as Guy
Vicky Krieps as Prisca
Rufus Sewell as Charles
Alex Wolff as Trent Aged 15
Nikki Amuka-Bird as Patricia
- M. Night Shyamalan
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- Frederick Peeters
Cinematographer
- Mike Gioulakis
- Brett M. Reed
- Trevor Gureckis
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Old, review: A provocative horror that brings out the best and worst in M Night Shyamalan
‘sixth sense’ maestro seems more concerned with avoiding any potential plot holes than creating wonder, article bookmarked.
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Dir: M Night Shyamalan. Starring: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee. 15, 108 mins.
M Night Shyamalan still can’t quite shake his reputation as the king of plot twists. It doesn’t matter what he’s done in the decades since Haley Joel Osment saw dead people. The label has stuck. And it’s not quite a fair one. Shyamalan shouldn’t be defined by his twists, but by his constant unpredictability. It’s a subtle but important difference. What makes his horror films so effective – when they’re at their best, at least – is that he allows his stories to exist in a sense of perpetual tension. At any moment, the path might change. They could slip wildly into a different genre. New nightmares could emerge from any corner. What determines whether a Shyamalan film is good or bad is how he deals with that build-up of terror. Does he let it linger menacingly in the air? Or try to soothe it out of his audience’s minds with a tidy ending? Old , in that sense, brings out both the best and worst in him.
In its opening scene, we’re introduced to what should be a blissful scenario: a wealthy, nuclear family on a tropical vacation. The parents, Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps), gaze adoringly as their young children zoom around their hotel room. But the camera sits waiting on the outside, watching them through the windows, pacing up and down like a jaguar readying for the kill. What hidden torment will soon be revealed to us? Old feels like a repeat of Shyamalan’s 2004 film The Village – it’s provocative and inventive right until the point the director retreats into narrative neatness and conventional emotions.
A manager suggests the family spend the day at a private beach – one of those little-known hotspots that all holidaymakers crave. They’re soon joined by a second family – a doctor ( Rufus Sewell ), his mother (Kathleen Chalfant) and his modelesque wife (Abbey Lee), plus his young child. A little later, another couple, played by Ken Leung and Nikki Amuka-Bird, arrive. A dead body, floating facedown in the water, is the real starting point for Old ’s reign of terror. There’s a man, too, crouched in the shadows, who nervously reveals himself to be a popular rapper called Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre) – it’s unclear whether the name is intended as a joke or just a sign of cultural disconnect.
But there’s a strangeness that starts to consume these people the very second they step foot on the beach. They can’t quite put their finger on it. But their bodies simply don’t quite feel like their bodies any more. The truth is that their cells have started to age rapidly – the reason why is part of the great mystery Shyamalan knows his audience will be eager to solve. Although the film is actually an adaptation of the Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle , by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, the director has provided his own resolution to the story.
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All the implicit themes at play here – not only of our general fears of ageing, but of the doomed inevitability that our medical histories create – run strongly throughout Old . There’s a primal potency to them. But the film, just like The Village , suffers from Shyamalan’s desire to forever chase a sense of order within the universe. Sometimes this can actually be quite refreshing – Old is the rare horror where the characters are all hypercompetent – but Shyamalan’s persistent refusal to leave behind any wonder, or instability, ultimately strips Old of its staying power. He seems more concerned with avoiding any potential plot hole that might send Reddit users into a rage than he does in creating something emotionally satisfying. It’s hard to talk about his films as something more than their endings when it’s the endings that always seem to decide their fate.
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M. night shyamalan’s ‘old’: film review.
Starring Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps, the filmmaker's latest contrasts a lush tropical destination with a baffling disease of the flesh.
By John DeFore
John DeFore
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Landing somewhere between The Happening and The Village on the Shyamalanometer of Narrative Gimmickry, M. Night Shyamalan ’s Old places a dozen or so travelers together on a remote beach, then watches them live the rest of their lives in a day. Facing a strange phenomenon that greatly accelerates the aging process, strangers must collaborate in search of escape even as time worsens their deficiencies and the director strains (with ostentatious camera movement and some stunning scenery) to keep things from feeling like a Twilight Zone morality play.
Viewers who can take it at face value may find a chill or two here, but ultimately Old can’t escape the goofiness of its premise long enough to put its more poetic possibilities across successfully.
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Release date: Friday, July 23
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Aaron Pierre, Kathleen Chalfant, Alexa Swinton, Nolan River, Kylie Begley, Embeth Davidtz, Eliza Scanlen, Alex Wolff, Emun Elliott, Thomasin McKenzie
Director-screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan
Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps play Guy and Prisca, parents who want to take their kids Trent and Maddox (Nolan River and Alexa Swinton) on a nice vacation before breaking the news that they’re going to separate. Their strife is no secret, though: Mom and Dad struggle to relax and enjoy a moment, even in a tropical paradise where cocktails are tailor-made to their tastes.
Seeming to intuit their needs, the resort manager quietly confides that he has an especially beautiful, secluded spot he only recommends to guests he really likes. So what if he also sends a few other guests to the same spot, and if the driver who takes them there (Shyamalan) can’t wait to get back in the van and hustle away from the site? Soon our heroes and a couple of other parties are settled in on a pristine stretch of sand with crashing surf at their feet and a vast wall of craggy rock rising up behind them. Then they find the corpse.
The dead woman was a friend of a famous rapper (Aaron Pierre) who was already on the beach when these guys arrived. A doctor ( Rufus Sewell ) is pretty quick to accuse the Black man of foul play, and Guy (along with a level-headed nurse played by Ken Leung) has trouble keeping their confrontation from getting out of hand. By the time things are nearly calm, the kids are five years older. And whenever someone tries to run back to the road to get help, he becomes disoriented in the passageway through the rock and winds up passed out, back on the beach.
In the kind of scene familiar to viewers of genre pictures, Old desperately has one character guess what’s going on in the hopes the audience will buy it and play along: Surely, Leung’s nurse deduces, there’s some strange deposit of minerals in the massive rock wall that somehow affects the speed of cellular growth in our bodies. Based on how quickly the kids (and the doctor’s daughter) are developing, we appear to be aging two years for every hour we’re here. If we don’t get off this beach, most of us will die of old age by tomorrow morning!
Or sooner. Several vacationers have conditions that, once sped up, present sometimes-disturbing threats to themselves or others. Anxieties are predictably high, and a capable cast handles the scenario’s weirdness as well as they can. Special credit goes to Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie, who step in to play Trent and Maddox as teens and therefore have the additional burden of imagining what it’s like to leap from prepubescence to young adulthood in a matter of minutes.
Long before he gets to his trademark twisty ending (not a bad one, this time), Shyamalan uses his sci-fi premise to deliver some predictable ironies. Any viewer will guess how rapid aging will treat the doctor’s stick-thin trophy wife (Abbey Lee). But those familiar with the director’s beloved Philadelphia and its engrossing Mütter Museum of medical oddities may resent a plot point that museum surely inspired: Without giving anything away, a heartbreaking exhibit there tells a true story of deformity that is transformed into a grotesque cartoon here — a sight gag that may be the last straw for viewers struggling to take the sometimes clunky screenplay seriously.
Rod Serling-like ironies aside, the movie does finally deliver satisfying answers to a question or two we’d given up hope of answering. But doing so requires a return to a familiar genre mode after a tranquil sequence where things might’ve ended, almost happily, in a very different mood. We’re all stuck together on a rock, aging too quickly, coping with irrational neighbors. Maybe we should just watch the waves and enjoy the company of loved ones for as long as we have left?
Full credits
Production company: Blinding Edge Pictures Distributor: Universal Pictures Cast: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Aaron Pierre, Kathleen Chalfant, Alexa Swinton, Nolan River, Kylie Begley, Embeth Davidtz, Eliza Scanlen, Alex Wolff, Emun Elliott, Thomasin McKenzie Director-Screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan Producers: M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock Executive Producer: Steven Schneider Director of photography: Mike Gioulakis Production designer: Naaman Marshall Costume designer: Caroline Duncan Editor: Brett M. Reed Composer: Trevor Gureckis Casting director: Douglas Aibel
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M. Night Shyamalan’s Old Is Beautifully Made and Terribly Written
M. Night Shyamalan can make a shot of palm trees sinister, just by the way he moves a camera. Old opens with fronds dancing in front of a bright sky, and then transitions to the vacationing family on the road below, as though the humans are already an afterthought, fodder for the high concept horror awaiting them. Shyamalan’s always been great on a granular level, crafting shots that place you in the mindset of the characters, or, in the case of this new film, decidedly outside of it. The Sixth Sense goes careening in sympathetic terror down the hallway after a retreating Haley Joel Osment, only to reverse and show us what he sees — the bathrobed ghost starting after him — before closing up his blanket fort. Signs holds on Joaquin Phoenix’s face, shifting with him as he tries to get a better look at what he doesn’t yet know is an alien on the roof, only for the creature to jump down off-screen, out of sight of the characters as well as that subjective lens, leaving rustling corn and a creaking swing in its wake.
In contrast, Old makes a repeating motif of the camera panning horizontally across the beach on which the characters are stuck, and treating their faces with the same indifference as the landscape. It’s so nicely done that it takes a while to admit to what a bummer the movie is, caught between brutal exercise and metaphor for the fleeting nature of time. It doesn’t care about its characters, but tries to pretend it does in the end, in what feels like a blatant failure of nerve. They’re barely characters, is the thing — more of a collection of professional titles, with Trent (Nolan River), the 6-year-old baby of the family, having a conveniently precocious habit of asking everyone he meets what their name and occupation are. Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is a psychologist, while her husband, Jarin (Ken Leung), is a nurse. Aaron Pierre plays a rapper whose name is, spectacularly, Mid-Sized Sedan, and Rufus Sewell is Charles, a doctor. Charles’s spouse, Chrystal (Abbey Lee), isn’t given a chance to describe her career, though an accurate description would be something like “trophy wife.” Their daughter, Kara (Kyle Bailey), is with them, as is Charles’s mother, Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant).
Trent’s older sister, Maddow (Alexa Swinton), is 11 and not yet working age (the children are played by additional actors as they get older), but their parents, Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps), talk about their jobs the way some people talk about their astrological signs. “You’re always thinking about the past! You work in a goddamn museum! ” Guy yells at Prisca early on, and later explains his perspective on the world to another character by noting that, as an actuary, he calculates risk. This picture-book-simple shorthand to introducing an ensemble would feel less clumsy if the intent were only to kill off the characters one by one, but Old is intent on trying to make its audience care about its primary foursome, and the way that Guy and Prisca have been teetering on the precipice of divorce. The beach vacation is meant to be a three-day reprieve, a way of avoiding thinking about the couple’s impending separation, and also the supposedly benign abdominal tumor Prisca recently discovered.
A day after arriving at the island resort (“Can you believe I found this online ?” Prisca gloats ominously), the manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) offers the family a chance to visit a secluded beach on the neighboring nature preserve, an opportunity he claims to only give to guests he likes. It should be clear that something’s awry from the moment the impossible-to-like Charles and his family enter the van, but the group proceeds to the beach under the guidance of their driver, played by Shyamalan himself. As the man responsible for ushering the victims onto the deadly beach, and later observing them from afar, the character is clearly a kind of directorial stand-in. But despite the self-acknowledged sadism of the set-up, in which the beach’s inhabitants slowly realize they are aging about two years an hour, there’s a timidity to the film that makes it exasperating. Old is adapted from Sandcastle , a graphic novel by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters that has a more ambiguous tilt, and the movie never squares its desire for body horror with its late impulse to have its characters try to reconcile their differences and reflect on what’s actually important.
There’s a death of imaginative gruesomeness, an instance of emergency surgery, and a disturbingly accelerated pregnancy, but there are also long, tedious freak-outs from characters lacking the dimension to merit them. Shyamalan, who’s been working his way back toward bigger budget productions ever since breaking himself out of movie jail with 2015’s The Visit , feels caught between the more emotionally considered movies he used to make, and the leaner, meaner ones he’s done more recently. His filmmaking can’t make up for the fact that Old is hovering indecisively between the two halves of his career, unable to commit to either direction.
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Old review – M Night Shyamalan’s beach thriller is all washed up
Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps are all at sea in this holiday-from-hell drama
T here’s only a certain extent to which a director can flirt ironically with the clunky storytelling of a Tales of the Unexpected episode before it stops being ironic and starts being just ponderous and mannered. And with his accelerated-ageing mystery movie Old , M Night Shyamalan is long past that point.
Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps both seem ill at ease in the roles of a husband and wife hoping for one last family holiday at an elite and secretive resort. Not surprising, since they are constantly having the kind of conversations that are more about dumping exposition than they are about shaping credible characters. And if we can’t believe the characters, how are we meant to accept the film’s central premise?
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Adapted from Sandcastle , the graphic novel by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, M. Night Shyamalan’s latest mystery-thriller, Old , is different from the films he’s written and directed in the past. The film is less focused on the traditional horror elements, which is refreshing, even as it shifts towards a message that is underdeveloped when considering the big twist. Old has its moments of intrigue, of bodily horror, and themes surrounding the passage of time, but it’s too often bogged down by its tedious mystery.
Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are planning to separate and bring their kids, Trent (Nolan River) and Maddox (Alexa Swinton), to the Anamika Resort for a last family vacation before everything in their life changes. When they and a few others — Jarin (Ken Leung), Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Charles (Rufus Sewell), and Chrystal (Abbey Lee) — are selected to visit a secluded beach for the day by the resort manager (Gustaf Hammersten), they quickly discover that time works differently there. Trapped with no hope of escape, the characters must figure out why they’ve been chosen and the reason they’re aging so rapidly.
Related: Old Trailer Reveals M. Night Shyamalan's Supernatural Thriller
Shyamalan builds tension and suspense with close-ups of the body — faces, knees, shoulders, eyes — when the characters are working through heightened emotions and changes to their situations. The camera pans away at every physical transformation, spanning the length of the beach before settling back on its subjects. This is exciting in the sense that the outcome of the movement is a surprise to the audience, as well as another predicament for the characters. It’s also a bold choice to film all the unfolding action during the day; as the sun goes down, the looming darkness is used to reflect on the precious time lost, the life choices made, and the affection that still lingers between Prisca and Guy’s family despite everything. There’s a deep sense of wasted time on anger and enjoying the time one has, even if Old doesn’t always pull it off because it waits too long to get to that point with the characters.
The dialogue is occasionally comical, especially when the characters are astonished by things they shouldn’t be — Prisca asks, in all seriousness, “Can you believe I found this place on the internet?” With so much of people’s time now spent online, where else would she have found the resort? However, the actors deliver their lines with such conviction, elevating the story and relationship dynamics that would have otherwise fallen flat. Old certainly nails the eerie, intense feelings that come with being trapped, of watching one’s life unfolding so quickly that it’s hard to think past the missed opportunities. As the characters grow older every half hour, the desperation and paranoia grows along with them, sometimes to dizzyingly intense degrees. That is where the thrills truly lie — how people can so quickly turn on each other because of things outside their control. The film’s sweet spot is right in the middle of its runtime, after the setup has been established, but before the reveal of what’s actually going on. This is where Shyamalan finds the balance between the story and its characters as he lingers on them and what this all means for their lives and the effects of their choices.
That said, the premise of the film is often more interesting than its execution. Aging is something society fears and avoids, with elderly abuse, age discrimination in the workforce, and the general negativity surrounding the loss of youth ever-present; the latter is on display with Chrystal, who values her youthful looks above all else. Conversely, for Trent and Maddox, what is it like to grow up too fast? When the mind of a six-year-old is suddenly a teenager with raging hormones, the impact on the body can be dangerous. To that end, Shyamalan is at least focused on the characters’ bodies, not in a creepy way, but in a fascinating, detailed close-up of its changes. Despite some of the good, Old doesn’t engage fully with the topics it sets up, including the aspect of the story introduced by the twist at the end, one that adds several more layers to the previous events. Typical of Shyamalan, the twist reframes the entirety of the film’s plot, but it’s one that will give pause regarding the exploitation of certain issues and how they’re perceived.
Sometimes, Old is bizarrely clinical despite its tension-building. When even the chills and thrills don’t work the way they should later on in the film, it leaves the audience waiting impatiently to get to the end for answers. There isn’t much time spent exploring the characters, with much of the quiet, reflective moments being relegated to the end. It doesn’t quite land an emotional punch because the plot is far more dedicated to maintaining the mystery, one that drags on unnecessarily and doesn’t provide much insight since it comes too late. The film’s primary message is tacked on at the end, with Shyamalan only dipping into the shallow end of the repercussions. So while Old is certainly a different kind of thriller, with plenty of elements that work to create a sense of tranquility and desperation in equal measure, it grows wearisome as it evades its deeper themes for the thrill of that final discovery.
Next: How Old Is Different From M. Night Shyamalan's Other Movies
Old is releasing in theaters on the evening of Thursday, July 22. The film is 108 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for strong violence, disturbing images, suggestive content, partial nudity and brief strong language.
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Old Reviews
Shyamalan’s efforts to stretch this into 108 minutes leaves far too many dull lapses.
Full Review | Original Score: 0.5/5 | Aug 10, 2023
A HORRIFYING Concept that will have you leaving the theater contemplating your life & the time you spend in it!
Full Review | Jul 26, 2023
Old is one of those cases of a remarkably unique, intriguing concept failing to reach its potential due to an overall disappointing execution of too many ideas.
Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jul 25, 2023
Questionable conclusions aside, you still can’t deny the beautiful simplicity of Old’s concept or the cast’s stellar performances throughout the feature.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2023
...Old fails to live up to its potential because of its half-baked, poorly written characters
Full Review | Jul 24, 2023
That pitch and pace unfortunately does the ensemble cast no favors, all of them struggling mightily to deliver some of the clunkiest dialogue of Shyamalan’s career.
Full Review | Jun 6, 2023
Though Old has a number of observable shortcomings, my overall impression of the film that sticks with me is that of excitement and amusement.
Full Review | Original Score: B- | May 2, 2023
Shymalan’s latest is compellingly perverse and wracked with a real sense of menace, making its hopeful denouement something of a betrayal.
Full Review | Mar 13, 2023
Quite beautiful and very stupid.
Full Review | Original Score: C | Oct 12, 2022
“Old” sees Shyamalan once again blending the supernatural with the real world to make something that’s uniquely his own. Not everyone will be onboard, but I was.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 17, 2022
Add Old to the unrealised potential column of M Night Shyamalan's filmography.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 8, 2022
The director’s latest reconfirms my original sentiments that M. Night Shyamalan is a one-trick pony who isn’t the most exciting filmmaker.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 10, 2022
"Old" is wildly inconsistent, preventing it from ever being genuinely as good as some of the director's better works such as "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable," or "Split."
Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | May 20, 2022
Old's breakneck pacing once things start going south leaves little room to delve into character and personal relationships, or feature enough quieter flashes that would have helped to create sympathy for these people we've not long met.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 26, 2022
iOldi represents the sort of solid mid-range thriller that use to litter the multiplexes 25 years ago.
Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 13, 2022
Try as it might, Old doesnt live up to its trailer, nor does it stand tall against some of Shyamalans other films.
Full Review | Feb 26, 2022
What is clear, however, is that Old is nowhere near the project many were hoping it would be and will leave many audience members and long-time Shyamalan fans shaking their heads.
Full Review | Feb 22, 2022
Shyamalan remains more invested in setting the hook than reeling in his audience.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 12, 2022
While far from a masterpiece, Old is an entertaining thought exercise from one of Hollywoods most invigorating filmmakers.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 12, 2022
Old delivers on its buildup of tension, although it struggles to engage on a dramatic level.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 12, 2022
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Common sense media reviewers.
Compelling concept, so-so execution; disturbing scenes.
A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this movie.
Not many overtly positive messages, but it does ex
Guy and Prisca try to protect their kids and calm
High body count: Characters succumb to everything
Brief shot of a woman's bare back and butt as she
Occasional "damn," "goddamn," and one use of "f--k
Adults get special cocktails when they arrive at t
Parents need to know that writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's Old is a thriller that explores what happens when vacationing strangers are stranded on a beautiful beach that ages them at a remarkable rate. Like all of Shyamalan's movies, there are plot twists and turns, as well as a sustained sense of peril…
Positive Messages
Not many overtly positive messages, but it does explore moral ambiguity of certain kinds of research, as well as importance of truth-telling within families and sticking together in difficult circumstances.
Positive Role Models
Guy and Prisca try to protect their kids and calm people when they can. Patricia and Jarin try to gather everyone, ask them to voice their feelings, work together. As a nurse, Jarin helps take care of everyone as they get sick and exhibit symptoms. Trent and Maddox are devoted siblings. Main cast is moderately racially/ethnically diverse, including an interracial couple (Black and Asian), a Black musician, two White families, a couple of BIPOC supporting characters. Everyone is heterosexual. Several characters have different chronic illnesses or invisible disabilities. A man seems to have early onset dementia but turns out to be schizophrenic and behaves in a way that's drawn from stereotypes about mental illness (he's homicidal).
Violence & Scariness
High body count: Characters succumb to everything from water (drowning) to one another (one person is stabbed to death, one is slashed but survives, another dies from blood poisoning). People have epileptic seizures, have emergency surgery, experience a host of other terrible things. Several dead bodies are shown; they decompose to bones and ash incredibly quickly.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
Sex, Romance & Nudity
Brief shot of a woman's bare back and butt as she undresses to swim in the nude. A woman flirts with a server. A married couple embraces and kisses. Teens hold each other; they have sex off camera and a teen girl gets pregnant.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
Occasional "damn," "goddamn," and one use of "f--king."
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.
Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
Adults get special cocktails when they arrive at the resort.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that writer-director M. Night Shyamalan 's Old is a thriller that explores what happens when vacationing strangers are stranded on a beautiful beach that ages them at a remarkable rate. Like all of Shyamalan's movies, there are plot twists and turns, as well as a sustained sense of peril throughout. There's a considerably high body count, with several disturbing scenes of dead bodies/characters getting sick, a surprise pregnancy and birth, emergency surgery, and the implications of children growing into young adults in a matter of hours. Various characters have chronic illnesses that manifest themselves in frightening ways. While the only sex in the movie takes place off camera, there's kissing and a scene of a woman stripping to swim in the nude (her bare back and butt are visible). Language is fairly tame except for a few uses of "damn," "goddamn," and one "f--king." Adults get special cocktails. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .
Where to Watch
Videos and photos.
Community Reviews
- Parents say (14)
- Kids say (42)
Based on 14 parent reviews
Another great movie that makes us think from M. Knight Shyamalan
A wildly underrated thiller, what's the story.
M. Night Shyamalan 's creepy mystery/thriller OLD, based on the graphic novel Sandcastle , follows four groups of vacationing strangers who are visiting their resort's special private beach together for the day when they realize that something is going irrevocably wrong. A family of four -- dad Guy ( Gael García Bernal ), mom Prisca (Vicky Krieps), 11-year-old Maddox (Alexa Swinton), and 6-year-old Trent (Nolan River) -- arrives at a tropical resort in an unspecified location. The manager recommends an exclusive excursion to a private nature preserve's nearby beach. They join a wealthy multigenerational family that includes an English chief of surgery ( Rufus Sewell ), his elderly mother (Kathleen Chalfant), trophy wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee), and their 5-year-old girl, Kara. They also realize that there's a single man there, whom tween Maddox identifies as rapper Mid-Sized Sedan ( Aaron Pierre ). Soon after, young Trent discovers a dead woman in the water: the fellow resort-goer who'd gone to the beach with Mid-Sized Sedan earlier in the day. A final married couple -- nurse Jarin ( Ken Leung ) and psychologist Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) -- appear amid the chaos, and it's soon clear that the beach has unthinkable effects on everyone. They're all aging approximately two years per hour, leading the kids to quickly morph into teen versions of Maddox ( Thomasin McKenzie ), Trent ( Alex Wolff ), and Kara ( Eliza Scanlen ).
Is It Any Good?
Shyamalan's thriller has a strong cast and an initially riveting concept, but it's uneven, and most of the best parts are revealed in the trailer. The performances are serviceable -- particularly Wolff, who's become an expert at the emotional range necessary for creepy horror/psychological thrillers. McKenzie is also notably good at portraying someone who's aged too quickly and is having trouble processing all of her complicated feelings. The adults range in effectiveness, with the striking Pierre (who's excellent in The Underground Railroad ) having little to do as the confused and quiet rapper, Sewell chewing up the scenery as an arrogant surgeon, and Bernal and Krieps trying to telegraph how a marriage on the rocks would react when faced with an unthinkable crisis. Stand-outs include Leung and Amuka-Bird, who play the story's sole likable and stable couple.
As in all of his films, Shyamalan also cast himself in a notable, more-than-cameo role, and, while it was predictable, he should have given himself an even smaller part. The twists here, once the titular premise is revealed, are underwhelming (and one is as obvious as Chekhov's gun). There's no gasp-worthy Sixth Sense or The Others moment, which is fine, but the "aha!" doesn't even matter much, because audiences may no longer be invested in the outcome. The best, freakiest parts of the movie rely mostly on the kids' accelerated growth, along with the physiological abnormalities that different characters face while aging a lot in one day (not a spoiler; it's right there in the title). Old ranks somewhere in the bottom half of Shyamalan's filmography, but even so it's worth a look -- if only to see the kids fast-forward into teens.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the violence in Old . How much takes place on screen vs. off? How does that affect the way you feel about it? What's the impact of media violence on kids?
How does Old compare to Shyamalan's other movies? What are some of his movies' signature elements?
In this story, how do the diverse characters work together toward a common goal? Do they succeed? What do you think about the outcome?
Who, if anyone, do you consider a role model in the movie? What character strengths are on display?
Movie Details
- In theaters : July 23, 2021
- On DVD or streaming : October 19, 2021
- Cast : Gael Garcia Bernal , Vicky Krieps , Embeth Davidtz , Thomasin McKenzie , Alex Wolff
- Director : M. Night Shyamalan
- Inclusion Information : Latino actors, Female actors
- Studio : Universal Pictures
- Genre : Thriller
- Topics : Brothers and Sisters
- Run time : 108 minutes
- MPAA rating : PG-13
- MPAA explanation : strong violence, disturbing images, suggestive content, partial nudity and brief strong language
- Last updated : December 27, 2023
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.
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Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
It's only a matter of time.
A family on a tropical holiday discovers that the secluded beach where they are staying is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.
Vicky Krieps Gael García Bernal Rufus Sewell Alex Wolff Thomasin McKenzie Emun Elliott Embeth Davidtz Nolan River Alexa Swinton Nikki Amuka-Bird Ken Leung Aaron Pierre Abbey Lee Eliza Scanlen Kailen Jude Gustaf Hammarsten Francesca Eastwood Kathleen Chalfant Luca Faustino Rodriguez Kylie Begley Mikaya Fisher M. Night Shyamalan Matthew Shear Daniel Ison Jeffrey Holsman Deidra Ciolko Margaux Da Silva John Twohy Alejandra Useche Show All… Louise Walter Arturo A. Baez
Director Director
M. Night Shyamalan
Producers Producers
M. Night Shyamalan Marc Bienstock Ashwin Rajan Catherine Wolf McGrath
Writer Writer
Original writers original writers.
Pierre Oscar Lévy Frédérik Peeters
Casting Casting
Douglas Aibel
Editor Editor
Brett M. Reed
Cinematography Cinematography
Mike Gioulakis
Assistant Directors Asst. Directors
Tudor Jones Darrin Brown
Additional Directing Add. Directing
Ishana Night Shyamalan
Executive Producer Exec. Producer
Steven Schneider
Camera Operators Camera Operators
Benjamin Verhulst Nick Müller
Additional Photography Add. Photography
Francisco Adolfo Valdez
Production Design Production Design
Naaman Marshall
Art Direction Art Direction
Wilhem Perez Pamela Delgado Ico Abreu
Set Decoration Set Decoration
Karen Frick Ivanna Bolonotto Gloria Isabel Gomez Antonio Jimenez Offrer Jose Ramirez Sanchez Tommy Rodriguez
Visual Effects Visual Effects
Jeremy Beadell Craig Crawford Emily Austin Griswold Jiwoong Kim Lance Ranzer Jennifer Wessner Lahiru Jay
Title Design Title Design
Joseph Ahn Aaron Becker
Composer Composer
Trevor Gureckis
Sound Sound
Matthew Nicolay Chris Chae Sean Garnhart Skip Lievsay Prince Anselm Davi Aquino Rich Bologna Deonte Fly Deezy Chambers Goro Koyama
Costume Design Costume Design
Caroline Duncan
Makeup Makeup
Tony Gardner Katie Middleton Cristina Waltz
Universal Pictures Perfect World Pictures Blinding Edge Pictures
China Japan USA
Releases by Date
21 jul 2021, 22 jul 2021, 23 jul 2021, 29 jul 2021, 30 jul 2021, 12 aug 2021, 13 aug 2021, 18 aug 2021, 27 aug 2021, 17 sep 2021, 23 sep 2021, 05 oct 2021, 20 nov 2021, 02 dec 2021, 09 dec 2021, 01 feb 2022, 13 may 2022, 13 jul 2022, 19 oct 2021, 23 nov 2021, 24 nov 2021, 14 apr 2022, 21 may 2022, 28 may 2022, releases by country.
- Theatrical M
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
- Theatrical 14
- TV Super Écran
- Theatrical 15+
- Physical DVD
- Theatrical 12
- Digital VOD
- Physical 12 DVD, Blu-Ray & 4K UHD
- Digital 12 MyCanal
- Theatrical 16
- Physical 16
- Theatrical Κ-15
- Digital 16 TVOD
- Physical 16 DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD
- Theatrical 14+
- Theatrical T
Netherlands
New zealand, north macedonia, philippines.
- Theatrical 15
Russian Federation
- Theatrical 16+
- Theatrical PG13
South Korea
Switzerland.
- Theatrical PG-13
- Digital PG-13
- Physical PG-13
- Digital PG-13 HBO Max
- TV PG-13 HBO
108 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page
Popular reviews
Review by CosmonautMarkie ★★★★★ 74
My mind is blown by every facet of this film. The acting. The script. The story. The directing. All of it was awful. The worst movie I’ve seen in years 🏆
Review by Lucy ★ 75
this felt like when you take an edible and it hits wrong
Review by clementine ★★★★ 27
personally i am terrified of old people so this did a lot for me
Review by Jay ★½ 42
lets go to the beach-each lets go change our age
honestly the comedy of year, feels like every member of the cast was given a different interpretation of what the beach actually does mentally and physically. expecting a drinking game to develop as a companion to the film, ‘take a shot everytime someone introduces themselves with their profession’.
Review by Vinny Simms ★½ 16
every damn kid in an M. Night movie always gotta be like: "I can excuse the supernatural, but I draw the line at my parents getting divorced"
Review by demi adejuyigbe 24
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
I am begging– BEGGING middle aged men to get new targets for satire! “Young women are vain, they love their phones” what else ya got!!!!!!
Review by Sara Clements ★½ 2
I need to start taking my calcium tablets in the morning
Review by ivy wolk 4
these characters interacting is just like talking to your friends parents while high
Review by The Last Kelton ★½ 6
imagine being the cop who has to go arrest a pharmaceutical company because they’ve been manipulating a magical beach to run drug trials. like what does that kind of paperwork even look like
Review by HHREVIEW ★★½ 5
Drink a coca-cola on that beach and immediately piss out a kidney stone
Review by sophie ★★★½ 14
must a movie be good? is it not enough to have the opportunity to lean over to your friend when m night shyamalan is on screen and whisper to them "that's the guy who directed the movie"?
Review by grace spelman ★★★ 2
Baby it’s Old outside!
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What to Know Before Seeing ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’
Who is Caesar? And how did apes learn to talk, anyway? Your burning questions about the “Planet of the Apes” franchise answered.
By Esther Zuckerman
For some, the name “Planet of the Apes” might conjure memories of Charlton Heston in 1968 . But the most recent incarnation of the sci-fi franchise has been going strong since 2011. These “Apes” movies feature no fuzzy costumes or heavy prosthetics, and instead are feats of computer generated performance capture technology.
The latest one, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” (in theaters), is both a direct sequel to its predecessors and a bit of a reboot of the property. Whereas the first three films in this new series took place within a relatively compact timeline, “Kingdom” jumps centuries into the future. And yet, thematically, it is still deeply connected to what came before. So what should you know going in?
Caesar is dead. Long live Caesar.
Directed by Wes Ball, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” takes place “many generations” after the first trilogy of films in this monkey business: “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011), “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (2014) and “War for the Planet of the Apes” (2017). Yet, those movies’ protagonist, Caesar, is perhaps the most important unseen character in “Kingdom.” He’s long dead — we see a glimpse of his funeral — but his legacy as a leader is debated and referred to throughout the plot.
So who is Caesar?
Caesar is a chimp, played by the performance capture king Andy Serkis. “Rise” ( streaming on Hulu ), directed by Rupert Wyatt, introduces Caesar as a baby. His mother was a lab chimp who is killed when she lashes out. The scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) takes Caesar in and raises him himself. (“Rise” is the only movie where humans are more central to the story than apes.) As Caesar grows up it is clear he is remarkably intelligent thanks to the drug that Will has been working on, which is meant as an Alzheimer’s cure. As Will and his team continue to develop the formula it eventually becomes clear that it makes apes smart but unleashes a deadly virus on the human race. (More on that later.) Caesar still has affection for Will and his human caretakers, but he leads an uprising of mistreated apes.
In “Dawn” (on Hulu and Max ), which was directed by Matt Reeves and takes place about “10 winters” after the events of “Rise,” humans encounter Caesar’s camp and ask him to help them restart a dam for their survival. Caesar, being the benevolent leader he is, obliges, but is met with resistance from Koba (Toby Kebbell), an ape who saw the worst of humanity in captivity before his escape. Koba plots to overthrow Caesar by making it look like humans murdered him, and therefore leads a crew of apes to attack the humans’ compound. Caesar, however, survives and must break one of his cardinal rules: “Ape not kill ape.”
Koba’s betrayal leads directly into the plot of “War for the Planet of the Apes” (on Hulu and Max ), another Reeves picture, in which Caesar is being pursued by a vicious human colonel played by Woody Harrelson. Now Caesar is a hardened leader, but is ultimately more compassionate than the homo sapiens he faces off against. As he makes his final stand he is shot with an arrow. The apes are saved, but Caesar dies.
What happens to all the humans?
The drug, ALZ-113, that leads to the development of intelligent apes turns out to be fatal for the human race. At the end of “Rise,” the Simian Flu decimates humanity after first being contracted by a lab worker who then sneezes blood on a pilot, who takes the disease on the road. By “War,” the virus has mutated and is rendering humans mute. As apes are getting smarter, humans are returning to their primitive state. The apes of “Kingdom” are now fully verbal, while humans are (for the most part) silent creatures called “echoes” by the apes. They are essentially wildlife, drinking from watering holes with zebras. In the meantime, apes have fractured into tribes with different traditions. The new hero, Noa (Owen Teague), belongs to a group that raises and trains eagles.
What is Caesar’s symbol?
Throughout “Kingdom” there is reference to a circular design representing Caesar. Raka (Peter Macon), an orangutan and scholar of Caesar, wears it around his neck. That is a nod to the window in Will’s house from which Caesar would peer out when was just a young ape, a symbol of hope. How this new crop of apes interprets Caesar’s actions becomes the backbone for the narrative of “Kingdom.” Was Caesar a conflicted friend to humans? Or an ape tyrant? We know that it’s the former, but not all of the primates of the future do.
Is there hope for humanity?
You’ll just have to watch and see.
- Cast & crew
- User reviews
In a Violent Nature
When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurre... Read all When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it.
- Andrea Pavlovic
- Cameron Love
- 5 User reviews
- 19 Critic reviews
- 65 Metascore
- All cast & crew
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- kmkevinn-64733
- May 14, 2024
- May 31, 2024 (United States)
- De naturaleza violenta
- Low Sky Productions
- Zygote Pictures
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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- Runtime 1 hour 34 minutes
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Old boasts an original concept and sumptuous cinematography (by Mike Gioulakis), but the writing and performances fail to see it through. Once the ageing aspect is set in motion, the film loosens its grip on the viewers, eventually settling for a tame finale.
Rod Serling would have loved it. And "Old" is very effective when Shyamalan is being playful and quick with his high concept. "Old" doesn't really feel like a traditional mystery. I never once cared about "figuring out" what was happening to this crew, enjoying "Old" far more as surreal horror than as a thriller that demanded ...
Old has no shortage of interesting ideas -- and writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's uneven execution will intrigue or annoy viewers, with little middle ground between. Love him or hate him, no ...
Old is a 2021 American body horror thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan.It is based on the French-language Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Lévy [] and Frederik Peeters.The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza ...
Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps play Guy and Prisca, a stressed married couple with worries that they are keeping from their kids, six-year-old Trent (Nolan River) and 11-year-old Maddox ...
Dir: M Night Shyamalan. Starring: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee. 15, 108 mins. M Night Shyamalan still can't quite shake his reputation ...
Director-screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan. Rated PG-13, 1 hour 48 minutes. Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps play Guy and Prisca, parents who want to take their kids Trent and Maddox (Nolan ...
Jul 23, 2021. Shot with a poet's eye and a tin ear for dialogue, this tricked-up thriller about the horror of getting old too fast brings out the best and worst in M. Knight Shyamalan by throwing a wet beach blanket on a Covid-resonant premise about sudden death and the collapse of time. Read More.
Old Review. Old hits theaters on July 23. M. Night Shyamalan's Old, which tackles the distinct horrors of aging, ends up being a fascinating entry to the director's spotty career. It may not be ...
July 22, 2021. Old. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Drama, Mystery, Thriller. PG-13. 1h 48m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn ...
M. Night Shyamalan's Old is beautifully made and terribly written. The Sixth Sense director still has a way with sinister shots, but is oddly invested in having the audience care about his ...
And with his accelerated-ageing mystery movie Old, M Night Shyamalan is long past that point. Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps both seem ill at ease in the roles of a husband and wife hoping ...
Published Jul 22, 2021. Old has its moments of intrigue, of bodily horror, and themes surrounding the passage of time, but it's too often bogged down by its tedious mystery. Adapted from Sandcastle, the graphic novel by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, M. Night Shyamalan's latest mystery-thriller, Old, is different from the films he ...
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 26, 2022. iOldi represents the sort of solid mid-range thriller that use to litter the multiplexes 25 years ago. Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 13 ...
Old. By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer. age 14+. Compelling concept, so-so execution; disturbing scenes. Movie PG-13 2021 108 minutes. Rate movie.
It's only a matter of time. A family on a tropical holiday discovers that the secluded beach where they are staying is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day. Remove Ads. Cast. Crew.
Review: M. Night Shyamalan's 'Old' isn't so bad, except when it's terrible. Aaron Pierre, Vicky Krieps, Gael García Bernal and Abbey Lee in the movie "Old.". The Times is committed ...
Old is a 2021 American body horror thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. It is based on the French-language Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters. The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen ...
M. Night Shyamalan brings us another cinematic thriller, which revolves around a beach where people rapidly age. Curiosity piqued, so let's review OLD!#Old #...
May 10, 2024. For some, the name "Planet of the Apes" might conjure memories of Charlton Heston in 1968. But the most recent incarnation of the sci-fi franchise has been going strong since ...
In a Violent Nature: Directed by Chris Nash. With Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley. When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it.