Was it the best movie I've ever seen? No.

It felt a little long and drawn out, but production quality and acting was strong. Even the storyline ended up coming full circle and giving the audience resolution and answers to the questions which I really appreciated. Usually this type of movie will end up leaving you to feel confused or they'll leave you on a cliff hanger. I appreciate that things were explained and that the story made sense in the end.

I loved the creepy/eerie shots. Like when they would stare at the black hole in the fireplace or staring into the black empty dresser. I feel like the storyline compares to movies like Hide and Seek (2005) or The Watcher (2022), but it had a very dark, unsettling, eerie feeling that compared to The Witch (2015) and Hereditary (2018). It's nowhere near as scary as either or those movies, but the music and camera work had similarities.

If you enjoy thriller or horror, then I think it's worth a try. Especially with the lack of horror movies and thrillers on the market right now.

Sarah Snook definitely nailed the part. She was the film's saving grace. All the actors were fantastic.

But alas, this movie was just too slow. I understand the need for character development, but there were just too many disjointed holes and illogical decisions made in the plot.

Also, why is it so trendy all of a sudden to make so-called horror movies so crazily dark? Don't these people have lights in their homes?

Little, Mia, or Alice, or whomever, doesn't do anything anyone tells her, so why does her mum keep leaving her in the house and telling her not to leave? What does she think is going to happen?

The movie is a bit of a mess, but still watchable. I wound up hating the mom, lol.

... after a second viewing. My first impression was much like everyone else's - confusing, unlikable people, slow, dreadfully slow, so many things unexplained...who is Joan, who is Alice, why the rabbit>

And then I read a review on here and decided to take a second look and this time actually pay attention.

On initial viewing, the movie seemed to be 3 hours long. On second viewing, it seemed more like one hour and ten minutes.

The movie actually gets right into it to establish the characters. Yeah, you have to pay attention.

The mom is a doctor. That's established in one short scene. It's also her daughter's birthday. And she just turned 7. Her birthday, if we're paying attention, is immediately disturbing to mom. We don't know why just yet.

The daughter begins to act strangely, and is it because she possessed or nbecause she's an abused child trying to make sense of her mom's bizarre behavior? Is she being bullied at school or bullied at home?

If we're paying attention, we learn that mom has issues. Her ex husband, early on, asks her to tell him if and she's not doing well, feeling sick. Later we see that she does call him and tell him she's not doing well.

But before we get there... The mom arrives home during what looks like what will become a storm - this is foreboding trouble ahead - with the daughter, to find her garage open and a white rabbit on the doorstep, which the daughter immediately takes a shine to.

Mom doesn't want it like the rabbit and tried to get rid of it. The rabbit bites her. We get a short shot of the daughter observing from the window above and the next day she starts wearing a rabbit mask. Mom acts very disturbed by this. What's mom's issues with rabbits?

Mom's dad has died and the daughter, Mia, misses him. Later we deduce that mom is estranged from her own mother, Joan (we initially don't know who "Joan" is) when the daughter, Mia, sa ys she misses her (she's never met her) and wants to see her.

Earlier we see that Joan sent a birthday card which the mom burned and never let her daughter see it.

Mom is called in to the nursing home where Joan lives because she has dementia and dad is no longer around to take care of her needs.

Immediately, the mom, Joan, believes that Mia (the granddaughter) is her long missing daughter, Alice. Mia responds to this and says, she's Alice. This upsets Mom and they are forcibly separated and mom immediately leaves.

Now Mia revvs it up saying she's Alice, her grandmother said so. Joan is never leaving this place to go back to the home she kept waiting for her daughter to return to. Mom and her dad finally had moved away, while dad kept in touch with his wife and her needs.

Mom now goes to the old house to clean up, but she's descending deeper and deeper into the trauma of her missing sister. She starts to see the sister and starts to see her in Mia.

She's been having disturbing dreams which revv up. She had a bad dream about her sister. But did the events of the "dream" happen in real life and she's reenacted what really happened to Alice and now Mia?

She starts to see injuries on her daughter that may or may not be there. If they aren't, then her reaction is terrifying to the little girl.

The father shows up and Mia is missing. Mom had been lying on the floor drawing something black on the floor. The back of Mia's homework has shown disturbing pictures that appear to be drawn by a child. Mom never does anything about it after being told about it at school. She thinks someone is bullying Mia at school

Ending: In the end we learn Mom was the one drawing the pictures. The birthday of her daughter began to trigger the trauma of killing her sister and lying about it. It appears she didn't much like her sister and wasn't a protective older sister. She may have repeated some of the behaviors with her own daughter, like playing hide and seek but never seeking her, just like she did with her sister, Alice. She locked her up one day and when Alice got out, she was furious and attacked her who struck her with a heavy object. The head injury and nosebleeds are mimicked in the daughter's nosebleeds and injuries - are they real, or imagined?

When the Alice realized she was covered in blood, she screamed and the mom pushed her off a cliff. She then told her parents she had runaway. Dad took her and moved away when Mom Joan couldn't move passed her grief.

When she was hallucinating that Alice returned, it was really Mia and she pushed her off the same cliff or killed her in some way. She also killed the husband. We see Mia in Alice's room and the husband, both "sleeping" in odd positions. She hallucinates that Mia and Alice are going off together in the end.

But what about the rabbit? I believe she brought the rabbit and she's the one who left the garage open. The husband mentioned he noticed the garage and all the boxes (which contained pictures of Alice, mom, Joan, and the now deceased dad), when he went to check the kids during the birthday party early in the movie. He was not the one who left the garage open so had to be mom. We later learn that Alice loved animals while the mom had no problem going with dad to clean the rabbit traps. Alice would being home strays like rabbits, a dog, and even a bird (mom thinks she hits a bird on the way to the nursing home).

I'm not sure exactly how mom killed Mia, but she may have beaten her with what looked like a horse bridle after thinking she is attacked by long dead Alice in the barn and then thinking she's chasing her, runs into house where Mia has insisted she stay in Alice's old room. She may have then thrown her over the same cliff and later retrieved her body and put it on bed. She may have killed dad, her ex, as soon as he arrived after her call that she wasn't well and she hallucinated they were both searching for Mia and finding her alive. Mom dived into the water and we see that she sees a body. We think she ishallucinating Alice, but it might have been Mia's real dead body.

We are lead to believe that Joan was abusive, but I think she couldn't let her grief go, knew her daughter was mean toward Alice (it's alluded to by Mia that dad knew this), and the distancing on both sides began.

Why was Mia acting the way she was? Wwll hey mother had past trauma and it's alluded to mental and emotional issues. Mia may have been reacting to what was going on as far as her mom hallucinatory and abusive actions. Also, she may have been reacting to the fact that no one would clearly explain the family secrets. As she said, no one tells me anything. She missed people she'd never meet because her grandfather probably shared tantalizing tidbits and she longer for more. When you keep secrets from children, they will create their own truth.