The Twin is a new horror film directed and partly written by Taneli Mustonen. Before this, he has directed more Finnish films. In the film, Rachel (Teresa Palmer) and Anthony (Steven Cree) move to Finland after a serious accident in which they lost one of their twin sons. Here, along with their surviving son Elliot (Tristan Ruggeri), they try to work through the trauma of the accident and put it behind them.
Still, Rachel notices that Elliot begins to act strangely, as if he is still in touch with his deceased brother. Rachel asks for help from a spiritual person, who after an investigation soon determines that something demonic is going on with Elliot. This horror film uses many elements from other well-known horror films, but quickly comes across as a bit cliché. They use illusion dreams like in A Nightmare on Elm Street, the horror atmosphere and story elements from Insidious and a mysterious sexe like in Midsommar. All these different elements lead to a large build-up in the film, but the final end result is suddenly too simple. Because of all this mysterious structure you expect a better end result, but the film ends with a weakly substantiated plot twist. Because of this plot twist, many used elements come across as unnecessary and some of them should not have been in the film, because much of this build-up comes across as unnecessary at the end. For a horror film, the film itself does not come across as scary, because besides the mystery of the film, little exciting happens. Because of this, you even start to miss the effect of a simple jump scare, to provide some tension or keep you awake during the long-winded story. The film seems to be playing with shadows to build up tension, but the shadows appear to be just isolated objects in the scenes with no further meaning. Due to too many changes and adjustments between the scenes and missing information, the film also comes across as a bit unclear. Often the scenes seem to build towards something, but then move on too quickly to the next scenes without creating clarity or tension. Finnish director Taneli Mustonen does use elements and traditions from Finland, but besides bringing this culture to the fore in an interesting way, the plot twist ultimately leads to nowhere. Teresa Palmer does her best as the lead role, but due to the lesser script and the disappointing end result, this is not always easy for her. Compared to other horror films in which she has played, she also does a little less physically, because she was pregnant during filming. Still, she does a better job than Steven Cree, because the script leaves him more in the background with little to do. For Tristan Ruggeri, this is only his first acting work in a film. He knows how to deliver appropriate acting, but due to the lesser script and quality of the film, he unfortunately manages to make his role little special.
