I was unbelievably disappointed by this. martyrs is one of my favorite movies, and the tall man, while flawed, was a perfect bait and switch and stayed interesting (the one before martyrs I wasn't into, but it was well done and seemed to hit what it was aiming at). this one starts in total cliche mode, but it's done so well and so viscerally that I was loving it. then he goes for another twist, and instead of going from one interesting story (I really liked the setup for where vera's story was taking things) to another, it goes back to cliche as meaningless mean-spirited torture porn. unlike the violence in martyrs, this had no thought behind it, just sad and painful for the hell of it. the lovecraft stuff went nowhere, and by the anticlimactic end the timeline is hopelessly muddled. plus, the villains were just offensive, transphobic and whatever was up with the other one (developmental disability?). that can be handled well, but this was just some 80s different=evil bigoted bullshit. tldr it's well-done cliche home invasion, then disturbing mystery, then lazy usual suspects jump into devil's rejects by someone with no idea what made that movie work and just ups the sadism. a total misfire in a career I was very excited to follow; hopefully whatever he does next gets him back on track.
Review by danBlockedParentSpoilers2018-06-18T16:59:17Z
I was unbelievably disappointed by this. martyrs is one of my favorite movies, and the tall man, while flawed, was a perfect bait and switch and stayed interesting (the one before martyrs I wasn't into, but it was well done and seemed to hit what it was aiming at). this one starts in total cliche mode, but it's done so well and so viscerally that I was loving it. then he goes for another twist, and instead of going from one interesting story (I really liked the setup for where vera's story was taking things) to another, it goes back to cliche as meaningless mean-spirited torture porn. unlike the violence in martyrs, this had no thought behind it, just sad and painful for the hell of it. the lovecraft stuff went nowhere, and by the anticlimactic end the timeline is hopelessly muddled. plus, the villains were just offensive, transphobic and whatever was up with the other one (developmental disability?). that can be handled well, but this was just some 80s different=evil bigoted bullshit. tldr it's well-done cliche home invasion, then disturbing mystery, then lazy usual suspects jump into devil's rejects by someone with no idea what made that movie work and just ups the sadism. a total misfire in a career I was very excited to follow; hopefully whatever he does next gets him back on track.