anburton-00763

I was fully prepared to give this a 7, but the ending just ruined it.

It's perfectly set up for an ending with closure, a Final Girl or maybe 2 getting out, and a cop with lots of personal issues maybe sorting some stuff out. Instead it completely falls apart in the last 10 minutes. The girl you've been rooting for is killed, and the other seemingly brainwashed girl kills the cop for reasons unknown, considering he's trying to save them AND she ends up shooting the "bad guy" too. The rest of the police aspect of the movie seems useless too, as well as the main cop's back story. Disappointing.

I felt like this was an interesting take I hadn't seen before on a trope I have seen many times. The claustrophobia and suspense is palpable. The acting is pretty good even if the characters are a little insufferable. I knocked a point off because the end was very abrupt and I feel like we didn't get proper closure.

Is this show perfect, or stunningly amazing? No. But I feel like it's important.

Yes it was cheesy and had some spotty acting at the beginning, but it was really just beginning to take off by the end of the season. People that gave up partway through episode one are doing themselves a disservice.

I grew up in the closet and I grew up loving vampire stories. I can only imagine how amazing it would have been to have any kind of LGBT representation (outside of Willow and Tara in Buffy, which was pretty much it for a long time). I teared up thinking about how many young people are going to see themselves reflected in this story, and feel like they're not alone, that they are SEEN and LOVED. It's not a coming-out story, there's no homophobic parents, the girls just ARE who they are.

It was a little hard to follow at first, they kind of just throw you in with all the terminology, and it's not clear that this world already knows about monsters until a few episodes in. But by the end of the season it's finding it's footing, and it would be a real shame if the story didn't continue.

The twist of Theo being turned adds a new perspective, and really exposes the character development of Talia and shows off the actress' skill. She had me CRYING.

So, TL;DR: Yes it's cheesy, but it's fun.

Yes I still have some questions about the world-building, but I'm hoping for a season 2 and believe they would be answered.

Never quit watching a show without giving it at least a few episodes.

Representation MATTERS, and I hope we get more, both of this show and of shows like this.

I'll say this for the film, the aerial footage is incredible. It seems like they spent their whole budget on drone work and the like... 15 minutes where they actually needed special effects at the very end. It's a solid hour into the movie before anything remotely "scary" happens. There's all this exposition and hyping up of "The Resort," which I don't even think has a name, for ultimately zero pay off. On top of that the last 15 minutes has some of the truly worst writing/stupidest character decisions I may have ever seen. And then they cap it all off with a very poorly executed version of my LEAST favorite horror trope: "just kidding, you never got out at all." At least it was only an hour and 15 minutes long so I didn't waste TOO much of my time.

I really liked the overall vibe and aesthetic of the movie, and thought the writing was pretty good. The time travel aspect could have been more in depth but I understand time constraints. Would have given it at least an 8 if not for the dog thing. I get it's foreshadowing for what happens to Steve but that was way more sad than just a death. Dog didn't ask to be dragged along on an experiment, and he gets left behind and fades into nothing... pretty upsetting.

If I had noticed/realized it was a Kauffman movie I would have skipped it. Every movie of his I've seen would benefit from being trimmed 30-45 minutes shorter. Their are some scenes in this film that are enjoyable in a low-level dread type of suspense that you think are surely going somewhere, but they don't. Those scenes account for less than 1/4 of the movie, maximum. I haven't read the book so I can't speak to its accuracy to the source material. The absurdity and ambiguousness of the film is reminiscent of "Synecdoche, New York" which is what led me to realizing it was a Kauffman film. All this to say... save yourself 2 hours. It's not worth it.

The acting was surprisingly good and it had some good jump scares. The monster screams are as unnerving as all the originals/inspiration.

A couple things about this movie.

1) It's one of those movies where it's actually a very compelling idea, and could have been really good if it was done correctly. This movie... wasn't. Halfway decent writing but acting worse than my middle school acting class. That being said....

2) I love Paget Brewster in Criminal Minds. So... how did she end up on this project? Her involvement plus the compelling idea of the script is what got me to watch, and I was pretty let down.

5/10 for effort and a strong start. Glad I'm not the only one who noticed the weird random dubbing/when lips didn't match dialogue, not sure what happened there. They explain the "twist" at the end without *really* explaining it, and the ending is left so open it's annoying. Hardly recognized Val Kilmer but he was decent in this. It was a good watch til the last 10-15 minutes.

I feel like the thing most movies these days fall prey to is a crummy ending. Regardless, there's some solid scares in the movie and the "reason/explanation" for why things are happening is something I personally haven't seen before. Entertaining but not one you'll go rewatch.