Alive 2020

I'm giving this an "8" because (1) it's a very original idea and (2) was not at all what I was expecting. Rather than just another ho-hum slasher filled with gore and blood (and there's quite a bit of that!) this was not your typical torture-porn film; this actually had a very unique storyline that was well thought out and well played. The story can seem quite slow and even plodding at times but it's well worth the wait when you realize what's been happening all this time. Additionally, the story itself - while not "scary" - does have this extremely creepy feel because it centers around what many (if not most) of us would consider to be a true "nightmare": being held captive by a certifiable lunatic who is convinced that all the torment he's inflicting on you is "for your own good".

I confess that I had to split this into a two-part "mini-series" and watch half of it one evening, and the last half the next day. I attribute that mainly to my being "an old man" and having a shorter attention span, but also because of the slow pace of the movie. While it was quite riveting at times (moreso in the latter half of the movie), there were times that it just slowed to an almost interminable rate of speed and rather that "on the edge of my seat wondering what's going to happen", I was bordering on boredom because it seemed like NOTHING was going to change. I kept waiting for this to turn into just a cheap version of Hostel (trust me: it isn't!) and was slowly building towards a moment of yet another roll-my-eyes-and-kick-myself-for-sitting-through-another-dull-movie; that did NOT happen, however. I was VERY pleasantly surprised at the conclusion here, and even though, yes, there were probably some scenes that could have been snipped just to trim it by a few minutes, at the end of it all, I felt that Alive was well worth sitting through a mere 88 minutes for. Definitely recommend this one for fans of a good psychological thriller/horror film.