Z Movie Review

4 stars, do you know who your friends are?

Z is written by Colin Minihan (Spiral, Grave Encounters) and co-written and directed by Brandon Christensen (Still/Born). It is his second feature film and pretty impressive for it. It is a Shudder original film and is presented for streaming by Shudder.com.

“A lot of children develop imaginary friends and often times it can be a positive experience.”

Josh Parsons (Jett Klyne – Skyscraper, 13 Steps) is a seemingly perfectly normal eight year old boy. His mother Beth (Keegan Connor Tracy – Chaos, Final Destination 2) is very proud, he always does his homework and has a healthy imagination, playing with his new imaginary friend.

However, her husband Kevin (Sean Rogerson – Underworld: Evolution, Arrow) has been keeping secrets from her.

She is called into the school by Josh’s teacher, who tells that Josh is suspended indefinitely for bullying other students and using foul language among other things.

With him at home, things continue to get worse, as he starts to insist on having a place set for his imaginary friend who he calls Z (Luke Moore – Sex, Lies and Murder) and starts to become destructive and uncooperative.

Beth becomes increasingly concerned about Z who seems to be pretty sinister. She even thinks she sees him herself.

They reach out to child psychologist Dr. Seager (Stephen McHattie – Pontypool, Watchmen) who advises them that everything will be fine. When things begin to spiral out of control Beth wants to turn to medication even though Kevin isn’t keen. But could there be something in Beth’s past to account for all their problems?

Z is a very entertaining film. It’s not a horror in the blood and guts sense of the word, more it blends the occasional jump scare with excellent tension building and wraps the whole thing up in a well written story.

It’s an interesting look at the difference in perception between childhood and adulthood and the way that this is dealt with. There is some exceptional acting which all helps add to the atmosphere very nicely. It does lose its way a bit towards the end, which is a shame after such a good set up, but not enough to spoil it.

All things considered this is well worth a watch, grab your popcorn and enjoy!

“You saw Z, didn’t you? He saw you too…”

Z is available to stream now on Shudder.com