Kevin Bacon can do suspense. Watch “Stir of Echoes” or his “The Following” TV work. Both are pretty good. The problem with his latest project “You Should Have Left” is that this haunted house feature is too uneven to keep us more than mildly interested.
Bacon stars as Theo, an older professional with a mysterious past, who is married to a younger movie actress (played by Amanda Seyfried). Together, with their young daughter, they head to a country home in the Welsh countryside in an attempt to fix their failing marriage. But when they began seeing scary things that aren’t really there along with some other spooky events, everyone is pushed to the brink of losing their minds.
The cast is good. Bacon and Seyfried try to jolt this unexciting material to life. Director David Koepp uses some neat tricks to keep us guessing at times and there are some creepy moments that will keep you from falling to sleep altogether. At an hour and half it does pass rather quickly.
Our problem is that it’s just not that exciting. We lug around too long before the suspense starts and then we lug around some more. The most interesting part of the film is the troubled marriage between our two main characters and in a suspense film that is a really bad thing. In matter a fact, a relationship film between these two might have been a better watch. They didn’t even have to go to the scary house in Wales.
“You Should Have Left” will still hit enough notes for some suspense fans. And Bacon does get some space to work here. It’s just too bad that too many pieces are out of place to keep this scary house picture from really succeeding. They got the R rating. They should have used it more.
You Should Have Left
GRADE: C-
Running Time: 93 minutes
Rated R
