‘Never Let Go’ is for much of its running time a derivative horror movie in the mould of ‘A Quiet Place’ or ‘Bird Box’ – not least with its strong, feisty, female protagonist whose job is to take on the role of protector or saviour after the world has apparently ended – though there are moments of unbearable tension which make this a cut above many of the other disaster-themed dramas we have seen in recent years. Halle Berry is a mother intent on ensuring that her young boys are protected from the forces of evil that lie outside her home in the forest, and they are seemingly the only people left following an apocalyptic scenario which has wiped out the rest of the planet.

Or, at least, that is what we imagine to be the case, and the film does a good job of unpacking its premise after what is a relatively dull opening twenty minutes which, we later realize, was setting the scene and that what follows consists of a fundamental unpacking and deconstruction of that trope as Berry’s motives and background start to be peeled away. Indeed, the threat to the children may be more inward than outward, and when a character unexpectedly disappears half way through the story the effect is similar to what happens in ‘Psycho’ following the death of Marion Crane. By the end, we might as well be watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie in terms of how there is a twist which makes us revisit what we have been seeing up to this point.

But, there is also a sense in which the themes contained in ‘Never Let Go’ are way too weighty than this small scale, microcosmic drama is able to yield. It deals on the one hand with monsters that may be as psychological as they are external or supernatural, and with the increasing sense that the two sons of Berry are unsure whether they can entirely trust her narrative, but there are questions around the nature of evil, deliverance, sacrifice and even redemption here which feel way too woolly and glossed over to really be able to make an impact. Throughout, it is as though the filmmakers are treading a delicate balance between two binaries – the external and the internal – and decide at the end to make a clear decision as to which of them to embrace, but the journey there does feel muddled and opaque.