Tonight's Horror Movie: You'll Never Find Me (2023)

Ooooh, I liked this one.

Before I start, a quick reminder that I tend towards the quirky and bizarre in my horror movies, not your general slasher, devil possession, or other overly supernatural tales. Give me a good psychological horror that is more about the characters than the gore and I am a happy camper.

And this is what You'll Never Find Me is to a T. In terms of genre, this is a chamber movie: a very small set of characters, bound together by circumstance, and forced to learn more about each other ... whether they want to or not.

Let's dive in...

You'll Never Find Me is an Australian movie and the directorial debut of Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell (Bell also wrote the script). The premise is simplicity itself: it was a dark and stormy night. The movie opens with Patrick (Irish actor Brendan Rock), a loner who lives in a trailer park. As a storm rages outside, Patrick is listening to a 1959 song called "Sleep Walk" and drinking whiskey. He is holding a vial of clear liquid in his hand, but the sadness in his eyes as he looks at it tells us that this vial probably doesn't contain anything healthy.

But Patrick is interrupted by a knock on his door during the storm. He opens it to find a pretty, but very bedraggled young woman (Jordan Cowan, Wolf Creek 2). He reluctantly lets her in to dry off, but he has no phone (so he says) or car to help take her to her destination. He politely offers her food, a shower, and a change of clothes, but it's clear she is very uncomfortable being there. And it appears that Patrick is too.

As they talk, with the mysterious young woman looking around his trailer, it is clear that Patrick is lying to her about some things. But she is a little suspicious as well, as she refuses to drink the whiskey he offers or eat the soup he made for her. This is understandable about a pretty woman in a stranger's home, with nowhere to go. However, it is also clear that she is lying to him too. And they're not simple lies she might say so as not to open up too much to a stranger. She appears to know some things about Patrick.

But overall, this is just an uncomfortable, but polite conversation between two strangers unwillingly forced into each other's company.

Then, the storm knocks the power out.

Both Patrick and his visitor start to see some things that may or may not be there because the only lighting they have is a flashlight and a portable lantern. Meanwhile, Patrick starts making excuses as to why she can't (or at least shouldn't) leave. And even though she clearly wants to, she doesn't leave. And they continue to talk and even play a game of "Bullshit," where obviously when either of them calls bullshit on the other, they are talking about far more than the card game.

What happens through the first hour of the movie probably won't scare you very much, but you do feel the palpable and growing tension. It is pretty delicious.

At one point, something bangs on the roof of the trailer and Patrick goes outside to investigate, leaving the young woman in the trailer alone.

This is the part where, as Stuntman Mike would say, "You're going to have to start getting scared immediately."

Without giving anything away, the remaining 40 minutes of the movie are a pure nightmare. But so much so that you are forced to wonder whether anything that happens ... is really happening at all. The movie ends on the same note. The only thing we are certain of at the conclusion is how things end for Patrick. Everything else is left for your imagination to interpret how you will.

As with any chamber movie, You'll Never Find Me is entirely dependent on the performance of its actors. And both Rock and Cowan deliver very well. Their expressions reveal things about them that their words never say and despite themselves, they do find some rapport, so much so that they occasionally say the same words to each other (or do they?)

Chamber movies also depend on good cinematography and Allen and Bell as directors shoot the movie in such a way that makes Patrick's trailer have the proper feel of isolation and claustrophobia (but also just a little bit homey), which adds to the movie's tension exponentially.

It's difficult to say what I think this movie is ultimately about without giving too much away, but the central theme is: can we ever really escape ourselves? Or our guilt for the things that we have done? The movie answers this question well, but you'd have to watch it because I don't do spoilers.

The movie is sparse on gore, as it should be. When we finally do get a taste of it, that makes it hit even harder. 1 out of 10 for the Gore Score, but I mean that in the best way possible.

At a little over 100 minutes, the movie is paced pretty well. The first hour will feel slow until you realize that first hour was well spent in getting you invested in the characters, which makes the third act of the movie all the more worth it.

If you like a good psychological horror movie with a quality payoff, I'd say You'll Never Find Me is well worth your time.