A man on the run finds himself next door to a known slasher killer who makes him his new prey.
Written by James Morris from a story by Morris, Michael Ballif, and Colin Cunningham, with Morris also directing, He Never Left takes the concept of a slasher film and turns it into something of a grown-up version of the slashers horror fans are used to. The story here takes a long while to get going and once it gets going, it stays in the realm of a slow burn, but one that just doesn’t fully get into its pace. The story has some good ideas here, but the development is not quite on point. The attempt at making this a tension-filled thriller on top of a slasher is not quite working. The characters help a lot here, but none of them are fully likable so it’s harder to root for them. Somewhere between the writing and the direction, or perhaps because of the combination of them, the tension gets lost, the characters get lost, and the viewer’s attention is lost.
The cast here is decently good with Colin Cunningham playing the man on the run, giving him that anxiety/stress/paranoia mix that works so well for these types of parts. His work here makes the film better and greatly helps keep the audience’s attention. His character is not a great person, but he works this part to the best of his capabilities. Working with him in many scenes is Jessica Staples as Carly who attempts to bring a bit more humanity and a bit more likability to the process. Her work steals a couple of scenes and she does make a good impression. The rest of the cast is ok, mostly decent, but also not particularly memorable unfortunately.
In terms of the visual side of the film, things are a bit uneven. The cinematography by Michael Ballif (and team) is really good in some spots and off in others. There seems to be a lack of light sources at times or of understanding how to work with the light sources available. This doesn’t apply to all the scenes though and it makes it even more obvious that the work here is uneven. Greatly shot scenes and badly light scenes mixing together create a dichotomy that is not ideal here.
He Never Left attempts to do something different with the slasher genre and at times it works, but overall, the film ends up a bit forgettable which is unfortunate. There is talent here but it doesn’t seem to be used to the best of its potential.