mjanelle-24974

I'll say out the outset, I saw this at a sneak preview a couple of weeks ago, and I was excited when I found out that it was this film. I really wanted to like it. I love Sally Hawkins (thought she was BRILLIANT in Shape of Water and deserved the Oscar she ultimately did not get) in everything she's done, and the same is true here. And to be honest, the first three quarters of the movie proceeds like a really taut psychological thriller. Hawkins' character is delightfully demented and evil, creating mischief with her foster charges (one about to be set off on his own and the other his much younger, blind sister). But three quarters of the way through, the film becomes something very different, somewhat disjointed and totally at odds with the previous bit. Yes, it's probably deliberately uncomfortable, but it becomes unhinged all too quickly, and basically becomes a gorefest of a slasher film. And in the end the directors don't know how to end it. The final image is confusing and lacks finality. Is the character dead or alive? Does she admit defeat and is waiting to be captured, or did she kill herself to be with the one she most loved.

There are flashes of occult/demon worship, but it's not clear if Hawkins' character is actually a Satanist, or is just using satanic ritual to serve her own ends. There are glimpses of these rituals (you eventually discover that these rituals had been used with some success) but nothing really "satisfying" to the audience. And perhaps the vagueness is the point.

Ultimately I walked out of the theater unsure how I felt about what I had just seen. If I could give two ratings, I'd give the first 3/4 of it eight or nine stars, while the last part only about 3. So I'll give it an average of five, partly for the bad taste it left in my mouth at the end.

OK, I'll start by saying I've always loved the Final Destination movies. They're fun, ironic, sarcastic. It's always interesting to see the different Rube Goldberg machines of death. What new kind of interesting ways can they think up to kill off their characters. And part of what makes these movies fun, particularly the later ones (because the earlier ones always left at least one character alive, perhaps as the conversation starter for the next chapter) is you never know who's going to get taken out, rather than the "hero has to live". Yes, it makes things a little more bleak, but it keeps you on your toes. You don't know right up until the end who lives and who doesn't come out the other side.

Even here, where it's determined fairly early on in the movie who is NOT affected by this installment's curse and why, you can't necessarily be certain. Death doesn't like to be messed with, and if you get in Death's way, it can get messy, as one of the characters says later in the show, and another finds out way too literally.

And this one seems to have mastered the fake out, even from its opening scene. It's fun watching the setup, and then the follow through. But then even after the follow through, you can't know if what you just saw was real, a premonition, or a total fake out. We get all three.

So it's a fun ride. There's even a couple of stabs (pun only partially intended) at tattoo and piercing culture. I won't give it away. It's too funny.

At almost two hours, this is pretty close to the perfect length. It didn't feel that long, at least to me, and the pace keeps up, save for a couple of "family discussion" scenes that could have used a bit more fraughtness from its participants.