‘The Owners’ Movie Review: Maisie Williams’ Horror Flick Can’t Find Its Footing

I don’t pretend to know much, but I am confident in saying that Maisie Williams might want to get a new agent. After a smashing turn in Game of Thrones, Williams has since spent her time on such cultural touchstones as … iBoy? Then Came You? At least she’s managed to land a part in The New Mutants, this summer’s sure fire hit … oh wait.

The Owners is another illustrious addition to Williams’s incredibly odd filmography. She plays Mary, the girlfriend of Nathan (Ian Kenny) who, alongside some friends, plans on breaking into a safe in the house of a local doctor. Things don’t quite go as planned when the doctor (Sylvester McCoy, pun intended, perhaps?) and his wife (Rita Tushingham) arrive mid-heist, complicating matters severely.

What first seems like it might be some kind of class commentary-filled screamer instead becomes an odd collection of grotesqueries, complete with buckets of gore and a creepy old lady. It’s a movie whose tense opening is entirely undone by a complete shambles of horror tropes laid bare in the latter half – lest you think there can be a doctor in a horror movie who doesn’t have the odd sadistic streak.

This would, of course, be at least partially excusable in the movie were somehow scary, which it is not. The music seems completely disconnected from anything happening onscreen, obscuring several key cues and confusing the film’s overall tone significantly. From the acting side of things, the young performers actually handle their roles quite well, while McCoy hams his character up beyond any sense of reality and Tushingham just thrashes around in some truly abysmal screenwriting.

At least it’s short, I suppose. The movie isn’t without potential: as I said, the first part is genuinely a good time and there are some welcome moments of visual flair. The whole of The Owners, however, is not much to get worked up about.