Shenae Grimes-Beech is famous for starring onDegrassiand the reboot ofBeverly Hills 90210, and while she hasn’t been acting for a while and is focusing on her family, YouTube channel, and podcast, her last role was in the 2018 horror movieThe Rake. The movie has a few common features of horror movies: main characters with a traumatic past and family drama who are dealing with a scary supernatural situation. But unfortunately, the movie fails in many ways.
While horror fans might check outThe Rakehoping to see a fascinating movie about a monster who gives them nightmares, there isn’t much that is scary about this film. The creature in this movie is one of the worst of the genre.
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There are manyhorror movies based on Creepypasta stories, and the 2018 horror movieThe Rakeis also adapted from one of these scary tales. According to theVillains Wiki page for The Rake, the monster is a “humanoid creature” who follows people around for a long time and who hurts them when getting angry or upset. Back in 2005, someone shared a story about The Rake monster on 4chan and the website describes it as “pale, bald and skinny humanoid-like entity with long limbs.” While this might sound creepy and reading about this creature might make it seem like it would work perfectly in a horror movie, the 2018 film just doesn’t work and that’s all thanks to the monster which doesn’t inspire much interest from audiences.
The Rake murders Ashley (Shenae Grimes-Beech) and Ben’s (Stephen Brodie) parents, and now that it has been two decades since that awful night, they’re together again and talking about their thoughts and feelings about the horror. The movie tries to usepopular thriller and horror tropeslike someone investigating and doing detective work, as their dad has a patient who thinks about The Rake creature all the time. This isn’t scary, though, as it’s unclear how this creature is different from the many monsters who have appeared in horror movies over the past few decades.
The movie only gives some character traits to Ashley, showing that she’s trying to move on with her life while wondering how she can given that she’s grieving her parents and worried about the creature. Ashley’s cousin Nicole (Rachel Melvin) and her husband Andrew (Joey Bicicchi) don’t have much of a personality and they seem less worried about her than totally annoyed. Ashley is staying with them and still affected by the monster who killed her mom and dad, as she has nightmares and anxiety. Nicole and Andrew do the typical “she’s just crazy” thing and accuse Ashley of making something out of nothing and panicking for no reason. This is not only unfair and the opposite of compassionate, as Ashley is clearly dealing with trauma, but it also doesn’t push the story forward or add anything at all. Audiences have definitely seen this a million times before.
While Ashley is scared of The Rake and convinced that they will come back for her, the monster ends up falling into yet another trope: a creature who possesses and takes over people. This is what happened to Jacob Murphy, who is the one who murdered Ashley and Ben’s parents and was taken over by The Rake. And this is what happens near the movie’s conclusion when The Rake takes over Ben. Horror fans have seen this happen so many times that it’s hard to know why this movie couldn’t have brought something fresher to the table. It feels like this was always meant to take place and that Ashley, Ben, Nicole, and Andrew had zero choice in the matter. There are so many fascinating movie monsters, likethe monster inThe Thing, and it’s so disappointing that the characters seem to have no will to fight back or any idea what to do here.
When compared to anotherCreepypasta myth Slender Man, The Rake doesn’t hold much interest. Slender Man looks much creepier but even the 2018 movieSlender Manis dull and uninspiring, telling the story of teenage girls who become possessed by this figure. This story was much more well-known than The Rake and yet it didn’t result in an interesting movie. BothSlender ManandThe Rake
There aregood horror movies with unclear endings, butThe Rakefails in not telling audiences what has happened to one of the main characters. It’s not clear if Nicole has died, and as there are sirens which tells audiences that someone might attempt to save her, viewers are left wondering why they watched this brief movie that is less than 90 minutes long. Ashley and Ben couldn’t defeat The Rake and take control of their lives and futures, which makes this ending boring. No one wants to see a horror film where the creature/monster/supernatural force/serial killer wins out and there is no chance for anyone to fight for survival.
