You Should Have Left: Inspired by The Shining heads to PVOD this month

You Should Have Left, the latest offering from Blumhouse, apparently takes its cues from The Shining. This Kevin Bacon film will be released exclusively on PVOD this month.

You Should Have Left began its life as a German thriller novella by Daniel Kehlmann. It was well-received by critics, and in March of 2019, an announcement was made stating that Blumhouse Productions would be filming an adaptation of the novella. According to Deadline, the venture will feature Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried as married couple Theo and Susanna.

Hoping to mend their troubled marriage, Theo and Susanna bring their young daughter with them for a vacation in the Welsh countryside, but soon find out that this will be no ordinary, restful holiday. The trailer (which you can watch below) is pretty creepy, as the little girl sees shadows in the house, and her father starts to psychologically unravel.

Reviews of the novel speculate that the author may have been inspired by Stephen King’s The Shining, and the description and trailer seem to point in that direction. Both of the stories tell of a man, woman and child who are isolated away from civilization, and both focus on the man appearing to slowly start losing his mind.

Watching Kevin Bacon’s performance also made me think of Tom Witzky, the character he played in 1999’s criminally overlooked Stir of Echoes. In that film, Tom and his young son Jake both see the apparition of a 17-year-old girl who has gone missing from the neighborhood.

Interestingly enough, You Should Have Left was written and directed by David Koepp, who also directed Kevin Bacon in Stir of Echoes. Koepp also wrote Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible. Bacon brought the original novella to Koepp, and shares the producer credit with Dean O’Toole and Blumhouse Productions’ perpetually busy Jason Blum.

You Should Have Left will be available to stream on Friday, June 19.

Are you a fan of Blumhouse films? Will you watch You Should Have Left based on the trailer? Let us know what you think in the comments section.