A grieving girl pours out all her sadness and anger into her drawings, where they can’t hurt anybody. But then those drawings come to life. ‘Sketch’ pushes its PG rating with surprising language, bathroom humor and plenty of peril. But its underlying message—and the way it conveys that message—makes this movie a gem.
They say the pen is mightier than the sword. But in Amber Wyatt’s world, that’s not necessarily true.
Amber used to draw nice little pictures of nice little things. But ever since her mom died, the 10-year-old girl’s drawings have taken a turn to the more … lethal. She draws monsters that stomp on their terrified victims. (And if that first stomp doesn’t take care of business, its snake-like toes will finish the job.) She draws monsters that dive-bomb poor unfortunates and stab ‘em with their steely beaks. And let’s not forget the eye-ders: creepy insect-like things, each sporting one big eye and lots of orange squiggles. They’ll try to take your eyeballs if you let ‘em.
And all those notebook terrors have Amber’s father, Taylor, just a wee bit worried.
Listen, losing a parent is hard. Taylor knows that. But part of him just wants his happy little girl to move past the grief and be—well, normal again. Hey, look at how normal Jack (Amber’s brother) is acting! Just look how well Taylor himself is holding it together! It’s not so tough to move on. All you need to do is squelch any hint that Ally ever existed. Is that so hard?
But Amber continues to draw her nasty little monsters and dark little ghouls. The school’s counselor says it’s just fine to do so. Healthy, even. Better to put all those scary, angry thoughts on paper than to act on them in real life. On paper, those pictures can’t hurt anyone.
Unless, of course, those pictures just happened to land in a magic pond or something. If that happened, the world might soon realize that—in terms of raw, terrifying might—neither pen nor sword can compare to a crayon in the hands of an angry 10-year-old.
Amber’s going through some stuff, no question. But she’s not going through it alone. Both her father and brother would very much like to help her; they’re just not quite sure about how to go about it.
Taylor is troubled by Amber’s pictures. But he’s even more hurt when he realizes that his daughter’s been hiding the pictures from him. “You used to bring me all of this stuff,” he tells her. And when Amber tells him that he’d just throw the pictures away, Taylor pulls out a huge box full of every picture she’d ever given him.
“Do not tell me that I do not treasure every single thing you’ve made for me,” he tells her gently. “Every. Single. Thing.” And when Amber does share her new, disturbing pictures with him, Taylor encourages her to sprinkle some good, positive stuff in her artwork, too. “Life is all about balancing the good and the bad,” he says. “If you don’t carry the good with you too, it’ll just make the bad stronger.”
Amid all of those old, happier pictures, we see a crayon drawing of Amber and her brother, Jack, with Jack holding up a sword. Wyatt Force, the picture reads—suggesting that (in the picture’s scenario) they were a team united against some unseen fearsome foes. And despite a few rocky moments, that’s what the two become in Sketch: a team. (A team made complete by their somewhat exasperating classmate, Bowman.)
Amber, Jack and Bowman all display some impressive moments of courage throughout Sketch. And you’ll find nearly as many bits of wisdom as monsters here. One of my favorite examples comes from Liz Wyatt, Taylor’s sister and real-estate agent. She tells Taylor, rather bluntly, that he’s running away from his own pain and grief, pretending that those hurts will go away if he just ignores them.
“I think you should stop worrying so much about the girl who’s drawing pictures of her pain and worry a little more about the boys who are ignoring theirs,” she says. And from where I sit, that sounds pretty wise.
Angel Studios, the production company behind Sketch, has produced a lot of faith-based and faith-adjacent content recently (including The King of Kings and The Last Rodeo earlier in 2025). But if you go into Sketch expecting a cinematic altar call, you’ll walk out disappointed. Sketch has about as much explicitly Christian content as a chocolate sundae.
Instead, Sketch boasts plenty of magic: The pond that animates Amber’s critters is a mysterious body of water indeed: It’s able to heal everything from cuts to ceramic plates. And Jack gets it in his mind that the pond just might be able to do something with his mother’s cremated remains.
Amber’s monsters look like, well, monsters drawn by a kid. They’re colorful and creative, looking as much like Muppets as they do creatures of nightmare. But one of Amber’s pictures spawns something much creepier and even borderline diabolical.
The Wyatt children take promises very seriously. When Taylor promises Amber that he won’t look at her notebook full of pictures, Jack says, “Give her your covenant!” “What are we, a cult?” Taylor says. He eventually does give the children his “covenant” (but he draws the line when they ask for a “blood oath,” too).
A character is called a “witch,” and the nature of evil is discussed.
There’s some discussion over the word “vitals.” When one child asks what vitals are, another says, “Something only boys have.” We hear about how much Bowman has tormented Amber in class: Her brother, Jack, mentions that that level of abuse suggests that “they’re secretly in love with you.” Speaking of Bowman, his gender identity might seem to some a bit ambiguous early in the film, but it gets clarified as the story progresses.
The action and “violence” we see feels much in keeping with its PG rating. Sketch feels like a kid-level adventure, full of fun and, for the most part, navigable peril. But we’ve got to add a couple of important asterisks to that generalization.
The first: Amber and her drawings. Sure, some may look like they’re ready to be turned into slightly off-kilter plush toys, but Amber means for them to be terrible killing machines. And she’s quite descriptive regarding what each one can do. (More than one, apparently, likes to yank out eyeballs.) Her monsters are designed to stomp and stab and gobble people to death, and her most terrifying creation comes with a monster blade.
Eye-ders tug on characters’ faces (in preparation to pop out an eyeball, it would seem), and one monster tries to swallow a particular character whole. The first bit of Amber artwork we see depicts someone getting stabbed in the stomach by that blade-wielding terror—quite clearly dead. (We can tell because of the “X”’s where the eyes should be.)
When a teacher calls Taylor in to talk about Amber’s artwork, she tells him, “We felt a phone call wouldn’t convey the—”
“Blood?” Taylor finishes.
The second: Director Seth Worley knows his horror movie tropes: Kids crawl through claustrophobic hallways or try to escape from monster-infested bathrooms. Forests can feel threatening. Deserted trucks speak silently to what might be a previous atrocity. Jarring chords that feel plucked straight from a slasher film sometimes can be heard in the score.
Combine these elements, and you’ve got a whimsical horror film on your hands. And if you’ve got young or particularly sensitive viewers, that’s important to keep in mind.
No one dies (as far as we know), but someone is knocked out. And we do see plenty of pell-mell escaping from critters as they stalk and stomp. People get scrapes and scratches (including a nasty cut on someone’s hand). A kid worries that a monster might “eat us and take our skin!” (“In that order?” someone else asks.) When some characters hear a faraway roar, they express their hope it’s just a mountain lion.
But Amber’s creatures can be defeated. The easiest way (and if they’re small enough) seems to be to spray or submerge them in water. (The monsters turn into the amalgamation of colors they began as.) But they’re also occasionally chopped or shot or grabbed with tentacles, too. Stylized limbs can be cut off.
Amber talks about the horrifically humorous ways she’d like to eliminate an annoying classmate, including “pushing them off a plane with a parachute, but when they pulled the cord, instead of a parachute, it’s just poisonous snakes.” Liz—who’s trying to sell Taylor’s house—tells Taylor that if he walks in on her again while she’s showing the house to clients, “I’ll murder you in front of them.”
We hear one s-word and a smattering of other profanities, including “a–,” “h—” and “b–tard” (though in fairness, the speaker is trying to figure out if he fits the true definition of the word; he does not). We hear a couple of misuses of God’s name, too. A common insult thrown around by the kids is “b-hole.” Someone says, “Jeez!” A few exclamations of “What the …” trail off into nothing.
None.
We hear quite a bit of bathroom humor, including a running gag about a character wetting his pants. We hear about bird and hamster poo, and someone apparently licks someone else’s hand. We hear a lot of conversations about rear ends.
A couple of kids sneak out of someone’s house. Some convenience store workers find that their workplace has been broken into.
Say you had a magic blender. Now, crack open that blender and toss in Harold and the Purple Crayon, Inside Out and a couple of books by Stephen King. Turn on high and voila! Pour out yourself a nice Sketch smoothie.
Of course, this cinematic shake comes with some lumps. Brimming with peril, bathroom humor and enough coarse language to make one question its PG rating, this story could stick in many a family’s craw. And given that this is an Angel Studios project, that may come as a surprise.
Sometimes, we can be lulled into laxity by some superficial datapoints. Some may look at the fun, colorful trailer, see the Angel brand and assume that Sketch is a fun, clean, Christian romp. Those moms and dads—and their kids—will be in for a shock.
But if you can get past those lumps (and mentally push the PG rating a bit closer to PG-13), Sketch is a delicious, and even nutritious delight.
As horrible and hurtful as giant stomping monsters with snakes for toes may be, such creatures are nothing compared to the monster of grief. And while you can see Amber’s creatures coming, the pain of grief and loss is far more subtle. It can devour you from the inside.
That’s the poignant point of Sketch. The movie introduces us to a loving-but-hurting family, each member of which is dealing with their own monsters of loss. Taylor tries to bury those monsters and pretend they aren’t there. Jack hides from them through jokes and action. And Amber? Her monsters can’t be contained. They spill out onto the page. And then—as the rest of her family tries to pretend that everything’s just fine—they spill out into the world.
And the worst monsters of all? Guilt. Shame. And Amber’s anger at herself for having those monsters at all.
And that’s where Sketch soars. Like Inside Out before it, Sketch reminds us that emotions aren’t bad in and of themselves. It’s how we deal with them that matters. As Amber’s dad says, “You can’t control your inbox, but you can control your outbox.” And that makes a huge difference.
But it’s not just Sketch’s underlying message we appreciate: It’s the skill and joy with which it delivers. This movie is flat-out fun, with some delightful writing and really dynamite performances. And Plugged In isn’t the only outlet saying so: Sketch currently holds a 100% “Freshness” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not too shabby, that.
Sketch is not as perfect as that RT rating would imply. Families should be aware of the little content monsters lurking inside this colorful, often hilarious film. But on balance and for this reviewer, Sketch is one of 2025’s real cinematic joys.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
