'The Manor' Makes Assisted Living Look Like a Nightmare

By Nate Parker | Film | September 15, 2021 |

By Nate Parker | Film | September 15, 2021 |

We’re weird about old people. They run our government. Trump and Biden are so old they ejaculate dust. Half of our nationally elected officials are over 60, and more than 15% over 70. Most of them break into a cold sweat around tech more complicated than an iPhone. Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Grassley are so old they probably shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car, let alone a nation. At the same time, we mostly ignore senior citizens unless they’re in our family or we work in eldercare. They go unnoticed until they say something super racist or hold up a checkout line to pay with exact change, or a particularly heinous case of elder abuse makes the news. Basically, we treat them like wrinkly children and dismiss their fears as confusion or senility. That’s the situation in which Judith Albright (Barbara Hershey), stroke survivor, finds herself. In The Manor, Judith enters assisted living willingly enough, until a strange series of events convinces her something supernatural is killing residents.

This latest feature from popular horror mill Blumhouse stars Ms. Hershey, Stacey Travis, Senator Kelly Bruce Davison, and a bunch of others I’ve never heard of. I can’t say it looks good so far, but it looks entertaining. Oddly, it’s got much the same vibe as a teen creature feature like It or Little Monsters, where the responsible adults won’t listen to anything our protagonists have to say. Here, Judith has the added frustration of her children and the resident staff insisting her concerns are a symptom of dementia, which is a terrifying concept in its own right. Blumhouse has a very hit-or-miss library, with genuinely frightening movies like Get Out followed by snoozefests like Evil Eye and The Lie.

The Manor hits Prime Video on October 8.