Imagine an eight-year-old told you a scary story that was then made into a movie, and you have He's Out There. But I think I'd enjoy the kid's story more, because at least I could say, "Well, a kid made this story up."
It has far too many stars on IMDB. I want my time back after having watched it, even though I was never fully invested in it. It was just so nonsensical and poorly acted, and the directing and cinematography were boring as hell, and there was nothing realistic about it. Yes, it's a horror movie, and there's a certain suspension of disbelief required, but this strained way too far to be forgiven.
Most of my time was spent asking why a character was behaving a certain way, or saying no to what was happening. The mom couldn't decide if they were going to run for help, or stay and hide, or run for help, or creep around silently, or try to get out to the road, or scream in terror when pelted by eggs. One of the daughters is sick and needs medical attention, until suddenly she isn't and that's not a catalyst for escape anymore.
It's great that the daughters were played by real life sisters, but they were terrible. The script seemed to be written for them to be younger than they looked, so their behavior was strikingly odd at times. Like, would an eight-year-old eat a cupcake she found in the middle of the woods, including a gross gooey center and a piece of cloth? Were she four, I might buy that, but definitely not a child as old as the actress looked.
And every time the older daughter squealed "momma" and sobbed in terror over the tiniest thing, I wanted to drive an icepick into my ear. The sound itself was terrible enough, but the kid did it at every tiny thing and it wore really thin.
There's a corny origin story for the killer, and he has all these elaborate plans, but if he's been living isolated in the woods and hiding, how did he make two perfect cupcakes unnoticed? Is he supernatural or not? Did he really die at the end?
Stay away from this movie. Unless you're playing some kind of drinking game, then make sure you drink plenty of water before bed.
