Horror Movie Review: The Cure (2026)

Written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer, directed by Nancy Leopardi, and starring Samantha Cochran, David Dastmalchian, Ashley Greene, Sydney Taylor, and Tyler Lawrence Gray. The Cure is a really good film for two-thirds of its runtime. It looks and sounds great, it’s acted well, and the story is compelling, but after spending a long time building up a suspenseful mystery, when it is time to show its hand, it goes in hard, and busts.

Ally Braun (Samantha Cochran) is a teenager living an isolated life within the boundaries of a lush Malibu mansion under the watchful eyes of her wealthy parents Jeff (David Dastmalchian) and Georgia (Ashley Greene), and their servants. Her isolation isn’t out of cruelty though as Ally suffers from the autoimmune condition, lupus.

Of course, being a teenager, Ally finds her parents over-protective ways frustrating and longs to meet someone her own age. Which is what ends up encouraging her to run off to the beach when she sees a group of teenagers have trespassed. There, she meets Brooke (Sydney Taylor) and they quickly become friends.

Reluctantly, Ally’s parents decide to let Brooke into their lives in the hope that it will help their daughter have some semblance of normality.

What is normality for someone like Ally though? When you have parents that are, literally, pitching an exclusive sovereign island to the rich? There’s a lot more going on in her life than anyone realises and dark secrets will be exposed.

I found myself invested in The Cure for the longest time, as the story is really compelling and not easy to predict. What helps keep things unpredictable is the way in which each character is written and played. No one is quite who they claim to be, but no one plays it that way, and it’s interesting to see the layers to each person, even when things begin to unravel.

Alas, this unravelling is where things do start to go wrong. Things get a bit convoluted and to explain certain plot points, a certain amount of dumb behaviour is injected into the story. Such as the lack of significant security around a certain area. However, as annoying as this is, there’s nothing quite as bad as seeing a character do a 180 turn, quips included. Turning what should be a harrowing experience into something silly.

I’m trying to be careful to not reveal much as most of what makes The Cure worth watching is its mystery. I’m not sure many will find the answers that satisfying, I certainly didn’t, but mileage with the latter third of the film will vary. For me, it slowly went downhill and several times, I found myself exasperated by character decisions or where the story went. Leading to an ending that I think creates more questions than answers. Unless you’re willing to just accept that the rich can do what they want.

Oh…

It’s not a bad film and there’s a ton of talent behind it, so well worth a watch. It’s one of those films that will divide opinion inevitably though.