Billed first as a horror, Don't Move (2024) veers sharply into survival-thriller territory, channeling more of a River Wild-style tension than genuine terror. It’s not necessarily a bad shift, but it does leave the movie feeling a bit more subdued than expected.
We’re thrown into the wilderness of a Californian state park, where Kelsey Asbille plays Iris, spending most of the movie crawling through the forest floor, incapacitated after a deadly encounter with a stranger. Grieving the loss of her young son, Mateo, who tragically died in a hiking accident, Iris returns to the very spot where he lost his life. Standing at the edge of a cliff, she contemplates ending her own life, searching for a semblance of peace.
However, these plans of hers are quickly swatted away when she’s unexpectedly interrupted in her moment of solace by a seemingly friendly stranger named Richard (Finn Wittrock), whose sudden and somewhat intrusive interaction causes her to reconsider her actions and gives her a new will to live. What follows is a tense and uncertain trek back down the trail, as she makes her way toward safety and her car.
This is where Asbille’s character, Iris, has to tap into a whole new level of survival instincts, ambushed back at base by Richard, who plunges a syringe of paralyzing poison into her veins. It’s an interesting gimmick that turns her into a ticking time bomb, with just 20 minutes before her body betrays her completely. However, it’s one of those ideas that, in fairness, we learn works much better in theory than in execution.
By all accounts, Don’t Move should’ve been a swift, brutal affair, Richard’s cold-eyed intent to kill is clear as day, his syringe a death sentence for Iris. Yet this predator fumbles his prey, grappling with a woman whose body is shutting down minute by minute. It’s darkly comical: Iris, barely more mobile than a rock, somehow keeps slipping through Richard’s fingers.
The characters of Iris and Richard are paper-thin. Compared to the genre’s sharper cat-and-mouse classics, this one pales, but there’s a primal spark in watching Iris, hobbled yet defiant, outwit her captor. It’s a raw, scrappy fight for survival that never quite claws its way to true satisfaction.
A welcome addition to the mix is Bill, played by Moray Treadwell, a wildcard who stumbles upon Iris clinging to survival on his property. Bill’s uncertainty about Iris mirrors our own confusion regarding his intentions, friend or foe, we can’t tell, suddenly thrust into a situation he clearly wasn't prepared for. It’s hard to really delve into his character without spoiling what, for us anyway, the movie’s best-kept secret.
We catch only whispers of Richard’s backstory, but they’re too faint to fuel a compelling reason for his predatory cruelty at least to steer the movie. Similarly, Iris’s own story feels brushed aside in those opening minutes, rushing into her abduction so quickly, there’s barely time to form any real connection with her.
The struggle between our main characters has its moments, but there’s only so much to be done with the setup, as the sentient landscape, emerging as a character unto itself, helps prop up the movie when the Iris-Richard cat-and-mouse game starts to sputter. Though the movie isn't able to unleash its daring premise in a way that truly shines, it musters just enough to guide you through, perfect for those yearning for a mindless, outdoor survival ride.