Ten year old Gunner Boone (Lonnie Chavis) moves to Pine Mills with his parents Amos (David Oyelowo) and Mary (Rosario Dawson). He is artistic and working on a graphic novel, correcting anybody who calls it "a comic".
Things are about as good as they can be although Amos is clumsy in trying to relate to him. The elephant in the room they all skirt around is that Mary has terminal leukemia and it won't be long until she passes.
Setting aside his artistic work he starts to devour medical literature hoping to find something the doctors have missed, but that also stops when he encounters the local legend of "The Water Man". This ancient revenant is said to have discovered the secret to endless life and haunt the remote woodlands searching for his long dead wife to resurrect.
Gunner enlists streetwise older teen Jo (Amiah Miller) who claims to have seen and been attacked by The Water Man, to lead him into the forest where he is to be found so he can wrest the secret from him.
I've recently been dunking on the "Fear Street" movies for being kids movies with 18-cert material crudely inserted. I also wasn't that keen on "Scary Stories to tell in the Dark" for being a bit too detail fiddly and meta for its own good.
This pulls entirely in a different direction by being a totally straightforward family movie with no on-point cover songs, fourth wall breaking, pop culture references or in fact anything I now associate with the push to be ever slicker and more relevant. It could almost have been made in the 90s, but in a good way. Occasionally bits of Gunner's art come to life and while that's nicely done it feels like it didn't need that flourish.
It's delving into grief, hope and denial of mortality in a very family friendly way with a bit of a "kids lost in the woods" mild peril adventure and a hint of the supernatural. It's very very simple but well crafted and manages to have actual emotional punch.
Recommended 8/10.