‘Isolated’ (2025) Netflix Movie Review - A Quiet Storm in the Night

I came into Isolated expecting a standard horror-thriller setup: eerie flickers of ghostly presence, a handful of dark corridors, and an unhinged attacker ready to strike. What I found instead was a lean, character-driven journey that unfolds in fits and starts, occasionally gripping, sometimes faltering. It’s a small canvas, dialogue-driven, and intimate, but that intimacy often works in its favor.

The premise is simple: Rose (Yassi Pressman) takes on a caregiving gig at a rambling estate on the edge of nowhere, tending to Peter (Joel Torre), whose grasp on memory drifts daily. Rose needs the money. Peter needs someone to anchor him. Early moments between them feel awkward, genuine—no grand gestures, just a woman weary of life’s financial strain trying to find footing and a man clinging to threads of familiarity. When the film hints at something more, watching from the shadowed hallways, it sets the tone of a subtle dread, never a full-blown supernatural menace.

And then the line between psychological and physical threat blurs. The first act leans into subtle horror: odd sounds in the attic, Peter seeing things, Rose turning over in bed to find someone standing at the doorway. Tension is built through little moments, a staring silhouette, a door creaking when no one’s there. These early beats are well-paced; they stay grounded in Rose's character. She’s not a scream-queen archetype; she's a nurse with a heavy heart and exhaustion lining her face. Her reactions feel believable. When she encounters the “intruder,” it hits her the same way it hits us: confusion first, adrenaline second.

Here is where Isolated earns most of its strengths. It never relies on cheap jump scares or dramatic swelling strings. Instead, it uses silence and spacing. A long, steady shot of Rose cleaning up a spill, footsteps in the hallway: these moments sell the atmosphere. Yassi Pressman, pushing past her comfort zone in a horror setup for the first time, charges a simple scene with a kind of simmering anxiety. It’s small performance moments, not big emotional sweeps, that make her worth rooting for.

Joel Torre holds his own as the confused but sometimes lucid Peter. He isn’t just a plot device—his character becomes a person in Rose’s care, someone whose vulnerability deepens when the tension tightens. The film’s nearly two-hour runtime is stretched, maybe a little too far, but both leads help carry it. The pacing is deliberate; in some places it drags, but the payoff in the final section, when the stalker reveals his presence, is earned through those prolonged moments of waiting and uncertainty.

That said, Isolated doesn’t always stick the landing. Once the intruder starts actively hunting them, the tone shifts. A movie rooted in subtle dread becomes a more familiar home-invasion thriller. The intimacy is lost in poorly lit chases and muffled confrontation sequences that are shot in near-total darkness. While the film has earned the right to take that leap, the execution isn’t always clear. In the chaos of grappling and shuffling around corridors, I found myself missing the earlier, quieter sense of dread.

There are also plot beats that feel undercooked, like decisions from Rose that don’t entirely ring true. Why she makes certain choices mid-chaos doesn’t always add up, but Rose stays consistent as a character, brave, sometimes reckless, driven by fear, guilt, or a misplaced sense of guilt over her inability to care for her own life. Still, a few narrative potholes are hard to ignore. And the climax, which hinges on a twist of identity, feels less “clever” and more “paint-by-numbers thriller.”

Yet, despite its missteps, the movie’s strengths carry it. The cinematography is quietly impressive, with wide windows casting natural light one moment, then gorgeously lit inky blacks the next. There’s an elegance in the visuals, from lingering silhouettes to sudden glimpses of a face in the frame, that suggests a thoughtful creative team behind the lens.

The score is another highlight: minimal, droning tones punctuate scenes. There's no bombastic crescendo when danger arrives. Instead, there's a low, persistent hum that grows oppressive, paired with distant metallic scrapes or soft door thuds. It’s uncanny that with such restraint, you can still feel your heart pound.

And the concept of caregiving in isolation is thoughtfully tied to the horror element. Peter’s dementia and Rose’s isolation from the outside world latch onto the intruder’s presence. He’s not just an attacker; he’s a perversion of Peter’s vulnerability. That twist, blurring illness and external threat, is a potent touch. But the film doesn’t explore it deeply enough to truly unsettle; it teases us, like glimpses in the dark, but never lets that idea fully bloom.

Still, what stays with you is Rose’s emotional journey. A nurse doing a demanding job, away from support systems, getting whittled down by stress and fear. Then, adding in a violent threat, she doesn’t fall into the typical genre mold. She reacts, she plans, she freezes, she snaps. It feels human.

My overall sense is that Isolated is a quirky, imperfect gem. It’s not perfect, its slow build makes some scenes dull, and the payoff may feel familiar. But sitting through those quiet beats rewards you with earnest performances and an atmosphere that slides under your skin. It’s not pivotal horror cinema, but it’s not forgettable either.

Here’s what I liked: Yassi Pressman stretching into vulnerability; Joel Torre grounding the dementia subplot; the sudden, eerie sound design; the slow accumulation of tension; the desire for more psychological layering.

Here’s the critical part: pacing sagged at points, plot knots didn’t always tie up, tension dissolved into half-lit scuffles, and the ending felt like it ticked off thriller tropes without surprising me.

Still, for a film that aims to do more with less jump scares, fewer cast, fewer locations, it delivers something oddly intimate. It doesn’t burst out of the speaker with gore and gore, but that low-key tension lingers post-credits. You might find yourself replaying a quiet scene in your mind: the sigh of wind through a window, or the way Rose pauses mid-corridor, clutching a rag, unsure if she’s alone. Those moments weigh heavier than the loud ones.

If you pick Isolated, go slow. Let the unease build. Appreciate the craftsmanship in the subtleties. In a world of scream-fests and shadow-show jump thrills, this is a whisper. Maybe that whisper isn’t bold or groundbreaking, but it's sincere. It’s a movie of small moments wrestling with bigger fears, and occasionally, that kind of restraint can prove more unsettling than any loud bang.

Ultimately, Isolated felt like a conversation I enjoyed having more than the whole. It didn’t blow me away, but it left a trace. I’d watch another film in this tone, maybe with tighter plotting, a sharper final twist, more payoff for what it teases, not because it screams brighter, but because it quietly stayed around, in memory, longer than expected.

Final Score- [6/10]
Reviewed by - Anjali Sharma
Follow @AnjaliS54769166 on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times