- THE LIE
- Starring: Joey King, Mireille Enos, Peter Sarsgaard
- Directed by: Veena Sud
- Rated: R
- Running time: 1 hr 37 mins
- Blumhouse Productions
Amazon’s new series WELCOME TO THE BLUMHOUSE is dropping a series of genre films starting this week. Amongst them is the Parental Horror “The Lie” directed by Veena Sud.
Carefully straddling the lines between horror/thriller and Lifetime drama, “The Lie” explores the limits that two parents push in order to protect their only child after she confesses to a horrible crime.
Recently divorced Rebecca (Mireille Enos) and Jay (Peter Sarsgaard) are trying to find peace and balance in their new separate lives co-parenting fifteen year old, Kayla (Joey King). When Rebecca insists that defiant Kayla attend a weekend ballet retreat, Jay agrees to make the trek through the icy, frigid terrain to get her there. En route, in the middle of nowhere, they find Kayla’s friend Brittany waiting at a bus stop who reveals she’s also headed to the retreat although her dad refused to drive her and has left her to wait for a ride in the harsh winter air.
Brittany asks Jay to drive her but almost immediately begins inappropriately flirting with him, causing the girls to reveal their true “frenemy” relationship. Brittany also immediately demands Jay pull over, still very much in the middle of nowhere, so she can pee in the woods. Kayla accompanies her and when they don’t return, Jay starts to become concerned and then hears a scream.
After finding Kayla sitting alone on the railing of a rapid-covering bridge, she reveals in a panic that the two had fought and she pushed Brittany over the ledge in a fit of rage. Jay searches the area with no success other than finding her phone and coaches Kayla through the beginning of series of lies that spiral quickly way out of their control.When they return to Rebecca’s she initially resists in corroborating their story but is roped in anyway when Brittany’s father comes over looking for her.
The hours and days that follow are impossible to look away from. Kayla’s icy, sociopathic behavior is unnerving and infuriating, Jay and Rebecca’s frenzy of lies becomes the proverbial car wreck that you guiltily cannot take your eyes from. This familial trio guides you through the unbearable questions that no parent ever wants to have to ask themselves.
“The Lie” offers no jump scares, gore or autumnal markings but the terror is very much present. This was a highly worthwhile welcoming to The Blumhouse that will resonate with the over thirty crowd, perhaps enough to question whether the present climate will allow you to handle the anxiety that it delivers.