''The Lie'' is a 2018
psychological horror
Psychological horror is a genre, subgenre of horror fiction, horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and Mental state, psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre freque ...
film written and directed by
Veena Sud
Veena Cabreros-Sud (pronounced "Sood") is a Canadian-born American television writer, director, and producer. She is best known for developing the American television drama series ''The Killing (U.S. TV series), The Killing'' (2011-2014), which ...
. The film is a remake of the 2015 German film ''
We Monsters'', and stars
Mireille Enos,
Peter Sarsgaard and
Joey King
Joey Lynn King (born July 30, 1999) is an American actress. She starred as Ramona Quimby in the comedy film '' Ramona and Beezus'' (2010) and gained wider recognition for her lead role as a late-blooming teenager in ''The Kissing Booth'' film ...
.
Jason Blum
Jason Ferus Blum (; born February 20, 1969) is an American producer. He is the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, best known for horror franchises such as ''Paranormal Activity (film series), Paranormal Activity'' (2007–2021), ''Insidi ...
serves as a producer under his
Blumhouse Television
Blumhouse Productions, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Blumhouse (; also known as BH Productions or simply BH), is an American independent film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum and Amy Israel. Blumhouse is kno ...
banner.
''The Lie'' premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
on September 13, 2018. It was later released on October 6, 2020, by
Amazon Studios
Amazon MGM Studios is an American film and television production and distribution company owned by Amazon, and headquartered at the Culver Studios complex in Culver City, California. Launched on November 16, 2010, it took its current name on O ...
, as the first installment in the anthological
''Welcome to the Blumhouse'' film series.
Plot
Divorced father Jay drives his daughter Kayla to a
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
retreat. On the way, they find Kayla's friend, Britney, waiting on the side of the road, and give her a lift. After pulling over so Britney can go to the bathroom in the woods, Jay hears Kayla scream and finds her sitting alone on a bridge over a river. Kayla claims she pushed Britney off the bridge. Jay checks the area for Britney's body, but does not find it and assumes she drowned and was washed away. Kayla finds Britney's purse and they go to see Kayla's mother, Rebecca, an attorney.
At Rebecca's home, Kayla tells her that she murdered Britney. Britney's father, Sam, arrives in search of his daughter. When he asks to speak to Kayla, Rebecca lies, saying she is at the doctor. Later on, Sam gets suspicious and returns to discover that Rebecca lied and Kayla is at home. After a physical altercation with Jay, Sam threatens to go to the police. Noting that Britney had a bruise on her face, Jay convinces Rebecca to try and put suspicion on Sam for the disappearance. She contacts a police associate, Detective Kenji Tagata, to accuse Sam of abusing Britney. When Kenji interrogates Sam, he denies hitting Britney and admits that she has run away before. Kenji interviews Kayla, who says that Sam has a bad temper and hit Britney before.
Sam spots Kayla outside Jay's apartment and tries to grab her, but she retreats back into the house as he is chasing her, banging on the windows, and screaming her name. Jay and Rebecca try to bury Britney's phone behind Sam's house, but he catches them in the act. Before they flee, Sam tells them that he knows Kayla killed Britney. When Sam appears in front of their car, Rebecca purposefully drives into him. Jay and Rebecca consider calling for help before letting him bleed to death and leaving his corpse in the road.
The next morning, as Jay and Rebecca scrub Sam's blood off her car, Britney suddenly appears, alive and well, asking to speak to Kayla. Britney admits her disappearance was no more than an elaborate ruse between her and Kayla to allow for Britney to visit her boyfriend. Britney becomes uncomfortable and leaves after noticing a bloodied rag, and their suspicious reactions. Jay and Rebecca confront Kayla, who tearfully admits that she went along with Britney's plan, and escalated the lie by pretending to "push" Britney off the bridge, hoping that the pseudo-tragedy would bring her divorced parents back together. As the family embrace and Kayla begs her parents not to leave her, the doorbell rings and incoming police sirens are heard.
Cast
Production
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
on the film began in January 2018. Its working title was ''Between the Earth and the Sky''.
The film is set in New York and filmed in the Toronto area.
Release
The film premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
on September 13, 2018.
In August 2020,
Amazon Studios
Amazon MGM Studios is an American film and television production and distribution company owned by Amazon, and headquartered at the Culver Studios complex in Culver City, California. Launched on November 16, 2010, it took its current name on O ...
acquired distribution rights to the film, and premiered it on October 6, 2020. Along with ''
Black Box
In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The te ...
'', it's one of the first two movies released from
Blumhouse Productions
Blumhouse Productions, LLC, doing business as Blumhouse (; also known as BH Productions or simply BH), is an American independent film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum and Amy Israel. Blumhouse is known mainly fo ...
's 8-film anthology ''
Welcome to the Blumhouse''.
Reception
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads, "Queasily compelling without ever truly coming together, ''The Lie'' won't fool many viewers seeking worthwhile horror fare." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, the film has a
weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Kate Erbland of ''
IndieWire'' wrote, "Too stupid to be the hard-hitting drama it was first sold as and too self-important to be the
black comedy
Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...
it really should be, Sud's film is a master class in bad decision-making, improbable choices, and overwrought acting." A.A. Dowd of ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...
'' gave it a C- grade, calling the film "laughably ludicrous" and saying that it "seems to fancy itself a meditation on the extremes parents will go to on their children's behalf, but it's curiously disinterested in what should be its driving dramatic force: how Kayla's crime—and how little it seems to weigh on her conscience—might challenge their unconditional love for her." ''
RogerEbert.com''
's Nick Allen gave it 1.5/4 stars, writing, "Very little about this movie works, in spite of a certain ambition in telling a story based solely on unfathomable decisions."
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
s Phil Hoad gave it 4/5 stars, writing, "the couple are so blinkered in protecting their offspring that it prevents ''The Lie'' from entering more psychologically torn territory that might have made it profound. Instead it's merely car-crash compelling." Al Horner of
''Empire'' gave it 3/5 stars, calling it "A watchable tale of parental dread, propelled by a strong conceit and sustained tension - but let down by its outlandish twist."
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lie
2010s psychological horror films
2010s teen horror films
2018 films
2018 horror thriller films
2018 psychological thriller films
Amazon MGM Studios films
American horror thriller films
American psychological horror films
American psychological thriller films
American remakes of German films
American teen horror films
Blumhouse Productions films
Canadian horror thriller films
Canadian psychological horror films
Films produced by Jason Blum
Films scored by Tamar-kali
Films set in Canada
Films shot in Ontario
Remakes of German films
2010s English-language films
Amazon Prime Video original films
2010s Canadian films
2010s American films
English-language Canadian films
English-language horror thriller films