While dark in humor, Listen Carefully remains a character study as one man finds that his baby has been kidnapped and only a baby monitor remains in her crib. Eerie, right? Yes, it is downright disturbing, especially when the voice on the other end of the monitor starts barking commands at him if he ever wants to see her again.
So much for a restful night, right? The hooded figures wearing baby masks will tell you otherwise. Wait. What?!
Andy McNeary (Ryan Barton-Grimley, who is also the writer and director) is at home. Giving his wife (Simone Barton-Grimley) a night out with her friends, he is alone when his daughter is kidnapped and the ransom, coming through on the baby monitor, is the tidy sum of a quarter of a million dollars. Ouch! The instructions are specific and set off a whole flood of memories for him.
Hold tight! Listen Carefully is about to SWERVE in all sorts of directions as it weaves its story together as a psychological thriller takes shape, suspending itself just above the heads of its audience. Think you know the story? Think again. These are high stakes indeed, but the game of cat-and-mouse has just begun and the path is just as twisting as Andy’s knotted-up nerves in the search for his missing baby.
Cue the violent visions and the relative unease which dresses up this production in chaotic colors.
Something is amiss here in Andy’s story and the flashbacks hint at something dark and twisted in his past which may or may not relate to the current situation at hand. Whatever it is, Listen Carefully builds to a boiling point which proves to be both exciting and tension-filled for the audience.
Barton-Grimley is no stranger to the territory of tension. His previous films, Hawk and Rev: Vampire Slayers and Elijah’s Ashes, deliver in the similar vein, but here he seems more confident in the storytelling, allowing for a whole lot of atmosphere to fill in the gaps in Andy’s story as he suffers from disorientation and unease due to the stress of the situation at hand.
With superb cinematography by Sean Ayers (The Trouble with Edgar Lynch, Chaser) and a nightmarish narrative chiseled from Barton-Grimley’s own fears about becoming a new father, Listen Carefully teeters on the edge of the frantic and the fanciful in a night that is long to be remembered by one new father.
The film is now streaming on all digital platforms thanks to Haida Street Films and RBG Films.
MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime:
Director: Ryan Barton-Grimley
Writer: Ryan Barton-Grimley
Cast: Ryan Barton-Grimley; Ari Schneider; Simone Barton-Grimley
Genre: Horror
Tagline: Daddy Never Knows Best.
Memorable Movie Quote: "Someone took my baby."
Distributor: Haida Street Films and RBG Films
Official Site:
Release Date: December 16, 2024
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: When troubled assistant bank manager Andy McNeary's baby daughter goes missing, he must follow the instructions of a mysterious voice on the other end of a baby monitor to save her before she disappears forever.
