- Director: J.C Doler
- Writer: J.C Doler
- Stars: Logan Donovan, Aleksa Palladino, Robert Longstreet
REVIEW
German folklore states that all living creatures have an identical, but invisible, spirit double. Different from a ghost, a doppelgänger exists in the same timeline as the original living counterpart. Often utilized in the horror genre as an avenue to show the evil side of a character, a doppelgänger storyline can be effective when it’s purposeful and thought out. Writer/director J.C. Doler’s feature film debut, The Twin, attempts to do this while also subjecting us to grief horror. But does he succeed? Yes and no.
Stay-at-home dad Nicholas (Logan Donovan) is working on his portrait painting when his son Jacob has a fatal accident. Every parent’s worst nightmare, Nicholas and his wife Charlie (Aleksa Palladino) now have to navigate life without their son. This tragedy unlocks a childhood trauma Nicholas experienced while living with his grandmother, and he ultimately ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Upon release, Nicholas must pack up his deceased grandmother’s house while regularly meeting with his new therapist and this is when the lore of a “fetch’ kicks the movie into gear.
Irish folklore takes the idea of a doppelgänger and says, “hold my beer.” A fetch is a supernatural apparition of a living person and is regarded as an omen. If you see your fetch, it’s not just a wacky life moment: it means your death is imminent. Nicholas is seeing his fetch, but he’s so bogged down by grief that he writes it off as one of the many symptoms he is dealing with. Donovan plays Nicholas with a believable melancholy that tugs at the heart strings and his scenes with Dr. Beaumont (an always excellent Robert Longstreet) help keep him from coming off as a guy who just wants to feel sorry for himself. Dr. Beaumont’s legitimate desire to help Nicholas is what leads him to uncover the history of a fetch and with the help of estranged wife Charlie, the three of them will face Nicholas’s literal demons.
Overall, The Twin works because, unlike a lot of the grief horror being churned out, Doler wraps his story up with a tidy bow. Now, whether you like your grief horror to be tidy or not is another issue, but this viewer appreciated a beginning, middle and end to such a heavy topic and using a supernatural aspect to visually explore the grief also keeps the film accessible to a broader audience. While some of the exposition is a bit clunky (no one likes a nosy neighbor), the f lashbacks of Nicholas with his son are a bit saccharine and the effects show their budget, or lack thereof, Logan, Longstreet and Palladino put their all into the film and this is what keeps it from feeling like a bargain bin movie rental. A bit of a mixed bag, The Twin treads familiar territory, but that’s not always a bad thing.
Available on Shudder
Lisa Fremont
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