I didn't for the least bit expect it myself, but "Seconds Apart" left a big and positive impression on me! This is the type of horror film where you beforehand expect to see 2 or 3 noteworthy sequences, and maybe a bit of gore, but then it gets instantly and forevermore erased from your memory. Instead, however, debuting director Antonio Negret comes with a clever film that has a genuinely unsettling basic plot to begin with, and then lots of morbid atmosphere, freakish characters, shockingly grim imagery, insane twists and explicit gore to boot! A few historical titles, most notably Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers", already demonstrated that much horror/thriller potential lies in the bizarre and inexplicably psychic bond between twin brothers or sisters, and Negret clearly understood this very well. The Entin brothers are superbly cast as Jonah and Seth Trimble, social outcasts at school that solely rely on each other and on their disturbingly picturesque parents. The twins are on a mission - frequently referred to by themselves as 'the project' - to finally experience some kind of emotion. Any type of emotion will do, and therefore they use their strongly overdeveloped telepathic powers to make people at school commit suicide. After each death they stoically ask each other if they felt something, which is really uncanny! The traumatized police Detective Lampkin links the unusually high number of suicides to the apathic behavior of the twins, but their mutual bond also weakens because Jonah is attracted to the new girl in town. "Seconds Apart" begins very powerful, with a nasty game of Russian Roulette, and every subsequent murder/suicide scene is cruel as well. The flashbacks/nightmares Det. Lampkin suffers from are occasionally redundant, but they are also full of horrific imagery, and literally ALL sequences involving the twins' parents are freaky. The Entin brothers give away great performances. They may look like boyish versions of actress Alexandra Daddario (without the perfect boobs, obviously) but it's particularly their cherubic faces in combination with their emotionless attitudes that make them so menacing. Antonio Negret somewhat loses control over the plot and narrative structure when approaching the end of the film, and thus the final act is quite disappointing, but "Seconds Apart" definitely ranks among the top-best efforts of the After Dark cycle.
PS: I find it quite remarkable that I haven't read in any other reviews that these Entin twins strongly resemble Alexandra Daddario. Surely, I can't be the only person who thinks they look alike?
PS: I find it quite remarkable that I haven't read in any other reviews that these Entin twins strongly resemble Alexandra Daddario. Surely, I can't be the only person who thinks they look alike?