When Yvonne Strahovski can’t save a horror movie, you’re in trouble. This film is not one of the scariest movies on Prime Video. The title is also streaming on Tubi TV for free. The He’s Out There movie is not intentionally bad, but it does have some issues. I want to clear something up though and that is the masked man’s backstory. I keep reading he doesn’t have one. He does and, I’ll tell you who he is and what his motivations are. His back story is not what makes this film less palatable, it actually makes it more interesting.
Is “He’s Out There” a Movie Based on a True Story?
The “He’s Out There” narrative is pure fiction. However, the two little girls Kayla and Maddie are sisters in real life. Kayla and Maddie are played by Anna Pniowsky and Abigail Pniowsky.
I’ll tell you what, firstly if I rolled my eyes any more times they would’ve fallen out of my head. This film is so frustrating I’ve already had numerous conversations with a plethora of people. Everyone agrees, that the He’s Out There movie sucks. It has all the ingredients to pull off a nice easy home intruder horror. Instead, it wastes its leading lady Yvonne Strahovski starring as Laura, and subsequently simply effs it all up.
Laura and her family like heading off for some chill time every year. They go to a picturesque lake house in the middle of nowhere. Kayla and Maddie are the family’s 2.5 children and her husband gets delayed from the intended departure time. Never mind, Laura’s got it covered, and they go without him. He’ll catch up with them later.
When Laura and the kids finally arrive, the gate lock is jammed and a ‘creepy’ guy appears proclaiming to be ‘local security/neighbor.’ Almost immediately the intention is for him to be considered to be the masked man because he dares to speak to the kids. He randomly starts talking about the family that used to live in the very same lake house and that their child went missing, never to be seen again. As Laura and her kids drive through the gate, the camera zooms in on the words ‘John’ scratched into a fence post.
Is He’s Out There a Good Movie?
The film’s initial scenes failed to warn me about the utter terribleness of the entire movie. I was taken aback by how swiftly my belief in the story deteriorated. Instead of highlighting its numerous drawbacks, such as the incessant screaming of two young children, let’s focus on the failures of parenting. He’s Out There exhibits many of them. The absence of adequate parental guidance indisputably renders this movie one of the most frightening films to watch on TubiTV. Nevertheless, it does not qualify as a good film.
“It’s Not Dead and It Smells Nice”
Quote from the horror movie, He’s Out There
When they appear back at the house, hushed and secretive, she doesn’t push the topic of what Kayla hid in the drawer. She is quite content that her explanation of the mystery item is ‘not dead’ and ‘smells nice’ is quite okay. Laura doesn’t even take a sneak peek to see what her child might have brought back from outside.
Laura is a Bad Mommy
Later, when the other kid is sweaty and sick, doesn’t eat pizza, and can’t even make it through the evening story — it’s not wine time. It’s not wine time Laura. It’s — grab the thermometer and take the temperature-time Laura. One doesn’t simply pull the covers off at bedtime to ease the obvious sweating, give a quick kiss, and run downstairs to quaff liquor from a tin coffee cup and smoke a ciggy. No, no, no.
While the barely older sister is concerned enough to ask how her sick and miserable-looking sister is, Mom is crashed into bed. My kids share a room too. Not once has my eldest child ever been required to wake me up and tell me my younger child was very unwell.
When daddy finally arrives way past his 11 pm expected time frame ready for a quick roll in the hay with relax-o-mom, he spies a spooky note stuck to the gate. Tired, long drive, big day at work he concludes mommy and his two small children are pranking him — at midnight. The same two small children who eat weird gel-filled forest muffins but I digress. He decides to follow a red string into the dark forest. I can buy two young girls following some string into the
Maybe mommy’s a teetotaller from way back, I dunno. Maybe she pranked Daddy all the time back home. Some foreshadowing or backstory would have been nice. All you need to know about her is she’s not very good at hiding during hide-and-seek. She’s also pretty crap at hearing someone take a car apart right outside but that’s because she was probably drunk. She’s also bad at remembering her mobile phone in the middle of nowhere. Another parenting failure, I might add.
Who is the Killer in He’s Out There?
I feel safe in letting this one out of the bag because this is a spoiler review. John is the kid who went missing. The one the creepy neighbor told them about when they arrived. He tells a story sporadically through a voice-over during the end quarter of the film. Whether he was living in the walls, under the house, or under the front stairs, I don’t know for sure. I could even hazard a guess that he may have passed some time living in the rafters because he was pretty comfortable dropping a very heavy body from up there before he got beaten in a hand-to-hand fight.
‘He’s Out There’ Movie Explained
John loves the story Laura reads to the kids every night and considers himself the answer to the riddle. At the beginning of “He’s Out There”, John is said to be simple-minded. Maybe that’s true but he alludes to always getting the answer to the book’s riddle wrong while the kids are under the bed, not screaming for a second.
This guy in a mask created a story and John is the shadow. He has always been there watching them just as a shadow would. When the story is over, he will start a new one. John has carved out his makeshift family ready to go. He starts with daddy and you see his cut-off arms plonked into the arm-holes and his eyes into the eye holes.
But John is a rookie. Just because you shove an ax into the killer and lock him in a car boot, doesn’t mean he’s finished. And just because you chloroform two young children, even when one’s supposed to be half dead, doesn’t mean they can’t assist in a smart getaway. Did I mention Maddie is the neatest kid vomiter I have ever seen? I mean, come on.
Lucky for John, Laura’s a rookie too, and when the kids look back in their escape vehicle John’s body is gone. He can start a new story with a new family after all. Isn’t that nice?
Where Can You Watch He’s Out There?
He’s out there streaming free on TubiTV in the USA. It’s also streaming free with a subscription on plenty of platforms and services. Check the link below for your region’s options.
He’s Out there is Now streaming on:
Who Was the Director Appointed Originally?
Dennis Iliadis was originally locked in for this one along with distributors Screen Gems who changed their role to production. Dennis is known for films like Last House on the Left (2009) and, Hardcore (2004.)
Who Wrote and Directed He’s Out There?
He’s Out There is a debut feature for the writer and director Quinn Lasher. The funny thing is, no one has ever heard of the guy. I read a theory about this being an example of; Alan Smithee.
What’s an Alan Smithee you ask?
Well, “Alan Smithee” is the term directors throw out to turn their back on a film. They use it as a pseudonym because they don’t want to put their real name on it.
Why Would Someone Say They Were Alan Smithee?
Under Alan Smithee, it means there was discord amongst the production players because the director was unhappy with the way things were edited/recut or done against their wishes. It’s at times like this they pull an Alan Smithee. To have this name applied though, they have to go through the process of applications to the guild. There are a couple of rules and it has to be pretty cut and dry that the film was literally yanked from the director’s arms and afforded some sort of messy outcome.
He’s Out There 2018 is rated
2 Don’t be like John out of 5
