there's truth baked in "Separation" about facing the demons of fatherhood, but as the title suggests, it's best to detach yourself from this dopey and lazy piece of filmmaking
the film squanders its intriguing setup and terrific performances by devolving into familiar genre tropes; "Separation" ultimately proves more interesting as a dark, character-driven family drama than with its predictable jump scares
for all those good qualities, though, "Separation" isn't very scary. An excess of talky scenes causes the horror sequences to be too spaced apart; In the end, Separation deserves an A for ambition, but only a C+ for execution
despite an imaginative setup, "Separation" can't divorce itself from a lack of scares, tension, and underbaked storytelling that prevents emotional resonance