Huluween’s opening act is a frustration affair that is bogged down by Too tired tropes

Few Things can be more cinematically frustrating than a film is Needlessly Coy. The central twist in StayThe horror movie that will will be the “huluween” Slate this october on hulu, is held at bay unil the moming moments of its 80-minute runtime. But there is nothing to be gained from this delayed grathification, and jas summers’ film is, in fact, hinded by its insistence on keping outs of the audience’s reach.

A Swift Tale, Stay Is Torn Between Being A Supernatural Horror and An Earnest Relationship Drama; Neither is given the due it is Might otherwise deserve. Why Kiara (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Miles (Mo McRAE) have split up is a mystery. The film begins with a gorgeously shot, black and white montage of the country wedding day cutting to say in their new home in Resplendent Color, and then itn IBRUPTly smash to the present day in moody blues. The economy of storytelling in the first three minutes is breathad, but unfortunately, the film goes downhill pretty fast.

Stay is Packed With TROPES

Told in unven chunks between the present, where the ex-couple is planning on finally moving out of their shared home, and various parts of their past, Stay is convolted uppon delivery. Which is a shame, Because Being that the film is told in this way prevents us from caring at all about their breakup. Echikunwoke and mcrae are stellar performers, and they give the film all they have, but there’s notthing to indicate this is a couple that coulued actually work.

Kiara is a phd in african studies with a specialty in african spirituality; Miles is an ex-mma fighter whose past gruesome injury has strength Him into a new career as a Gym owner. The two Clearly have sexual chemistry, and repetitive flashbacks communicate how they may have, at one point, really like each Other.

But, in the present, they are as cruel as can be. He blams her for blowing the Relationship up; She blams Him for giving up too; He Thinks She’s Living in La La Land; She calls Him a coward. It is tirashome to hear argument after argument with no specificity about what’s actually Being Talked About, and by the time we get a full picture of what happened between say, all potential for relaxing to eather has discated.

Neither Stay‘s horror elements, they are all inadvertently funny. Trope after trope is invoked as kiara wanders around her house responding to creaky doors, a phonograph record that turns on by itself, her reflection starch at her with evil and mirror, miles being dragged acces the floor by an invisible strength. Its All Just Very Tered. Cry the film does have a good impulse-like forcing miles to relive breakup but through hiss eyes-it abandons it almost immediately.

The final segment of the film finally reveals all: what Broke this couple up, what is haunting say, and what they have to be to break the curse. The twist is sufficiently tragic, but it is also mawkish. The structure is misguided. A LOT OF COUPles WILL Stay to stay together after what kiara and miles suffer through, but what do we gain by being told this information outside of traditional chronology? IT ONLY FRUSTRATES Our ability to related to the characters.

Stay is a horror film about how you can’t leave the proverbial house you understand what’s keping you inside. To put it another way, the film supposes that you can’t make meve forward with processing your pain. But if we don’t know what that Pain isWhy Should We Care About What Wounds I Say?

Release Date

October 8, 2025

Directory

Jas Summers

Wriers

Jas Summers

• 

  Megalyn echikunwoke

  Kiara

•