M. Night Shyamalan’s horror is thoughtful.  Old is a little difficult to accept because it’s very difficult to keep artificially aging actors at a steady rate, either by make-up or substitution.  And it seems that the mysterious beach that ages people but also heals them should, in some way, make exploring its medical possibilities somewhat difficult.  Still, it is a noteworthy day-light horror offering that has an underlying ethical question.  I will need to include a spoiler to discuss that ethical issue, but before I get there, a vacation brochure.  Individuals, and families, are brought to a resort where everything’s perfect.  Then they are driven to a remote beach and discover that they really can’t leave.  And they age at a rapid rate.  (This may make you think of a Gilligan’s Island episode, but this one has no laughs.)  The aging is first noticed with the children and by the time the adults realize what is happening, it’s too late.

Here comes a spoiler.  Old was released during the pandemic’s second year, so I suspect it wasn’t widely seen.  If you’re still waiting, here’s your chance.  Ready?  Okay.  So, this island’s aging properties have been tapped by a pharmaceutical company to test new drugs on patients with various diseases.  Instead of waiting years for results, they can know in a day whether a treatment, unwittingly taken by the clients when they first arrived, worked.  If a “client” has no symptoms for a day, it is the equivalent of years.  The company, although it is responsible for the deaths of the people in the trial, give the results away, saving many lives for free.  Here is the ethical dilemma—do you save thousands, or millions, by having one person die to test the drug?  The real issue is that it’s done without consent.  Those aging have no idea they’re test subjects. 

Consent is an ideal, but in fact life happens to us and we seldom have the right of refusal.  Perhaps that’s the more insidious message here—giving consent furthers the illusion that we’re in charge of our lives.  I’m sure all of us can think of things that happened to us not because we chose them, but because we were at the right or wrong place at the wrong or right time.  When some such thing transpires, it often takes us considerable time to regain our balance, to feel like we’re “in control” again.  I chose to watch Old, perhaps when it wasn’t a good time to do so.  Or did I choose it?  And whose morals are these?