legitimately such a visually stunning and fun entry into the action genre. the number of times bullets run out is one of my favorite aspects of the action sequences, but also there's a scene later on that, combined with mary elizabeth winstead's increasingly horrifying deterioration, puts this on my body horror list. it's not a horror, but it's pretty and there's bodies being horrific, so it works. i'm really digging the recent action films that use just enough stylistic choices borrowed from video games to bump up the immersion.
when i was checking on who the stunt coordinators were i saw some Highly Bitter articles calling this a john wick clone but honestly every action movie follows a formula because the formula works and being poisoned with radiation is a great reason for revenge even if it didn't involve a dog.
also, i don't even fucking care i loved that ridiculous car chase scene
two things make this movie worth it: rebecca hall's performance and ben lovett's score. otherwise it's pretty weak.
the scene after she falls asleep in claire's lap tho. shit took about 10 years off my lifespan i'm still Stressed man i have a heart defect don't do that to me
i don't think people realize that the movies that netflix gets the rights to are movies that often don't get to the point of premiering. these are things that would end up in development or premiere hell, a lot of times. so yeah, the casts are great and the movies are usually subpar. i think anyone going into watching a movie that netflix bought the rights to needs to go in with the mindset of it being a b movie regardless of the actors that feature in it.
at least that's my personal rule, and as a result this is one of the better netflix exclusives. the acting was great, all things considered. i will say that it dragged on at certain points and the solution to the problem was pretty obvious from the start, but as someone who's had insomnia since she was four years old, i could FEEL the delirious paranoia. if you've never had sleeping issues before, this probably will feel pointless and boring. if you have, you'll feel the dread and stress the actors are putting out, trust me.
when your dad is such a helicopter parent that he follows you across london through fire and chemical warfare just to try and murder you
i wouldn't classify this as science fiction as there's no definitive proof for anything occurring within the setting. not enough screen time for the poor horse considering it's a movie titled horse girl tbh.
most importantly: i would watch the tv series within this movie in a HEARTBEAT i mean its flawless procedural trash very clearly making fun of supernatural. when is netflix gonna make that??
i knew this movie was going to be worth it when the rock's car chase was stopped in the first u turn by an ice cream truck
this movie takes every absolutely stupid and ridiculous superhero trope and subverts it into something entertaining and nonstop fun. is it a masterpiece? not really, but then again no comics movie is (unless it's into the spiderverse then fuck you it's perfect and gamechanging and has a superhero pig how dare you). but it's pure entertainment, for a straight two hours and some change. even in the emotional moments and brutal gore scenes, this movie is a cinematic delight.
i hope this and the success of snyder's dc entries show producers that good directors know what they're doing. let them do what they fucking want, pay their immensely skilled and underappreciated teams to make the final cuts look the way they've been envisioned, and you'll get people watching your content.
like the only reason i'm still paying for hbo max every month even during a career switch is for the ability to see people get to make this kind of shit.
honestly not that bad for a netflix horror. with each movie in this genre though the concept gets a little less scary - and then i remember the real life versions of events like these and want to live in a panic room for the rest of my life. so it's pretty evergreen in that regard.
also, once you've watched the movie, look up the kathy rowe case - thats what the true events card at the beginning is referring to. but THEN, also look up the otto sanhuber case. this movie combines both of those - and pretty well, tbh.
drama with a sci-fi setting, really. the actors did a good job, i got emotional more than once thanks to the female leads. not great, but not nearly as bad as some comments imply.
it's a great movie. not horror in the traditional sense, but an homage to peele's inspirations and an awesome cast. there are a few delightful misdirection jump scares and a moment proving children are truly the Worst:tm:, but i do think the third act's eldritchian, supermassive monster moment gave me the most discomfort. like, it just took everything about space that makes me want to vomit and turned it up to 11. jordan peele has honestly never disappointed me; even if this isn't my favorite film by him, it is absolutely a good one and more than worth its runtime.
pre-2020 i used to think these kinds of movies vastly overstated the us government's incompetence but now i'm just like ah what accuracy!
aaron taylor johnson and brian tyree henry were the absolute best part of this movie. that and all the cameos i had no idea about because i went into the movie blind.
it's a very good and well-acted movie. riz ahmed and the two young boys who play his sons are all incredible. the soundtrack is also great. it's not a sci-fi movie and while the movie makes that clear pretty early on, it's not early on enough to justify being labeled as sci-fi.
technically, the threat :asterisk_symbol:isn't:asterisk_symbol: human. mental illness doesn't feel at all like being a human.
this would easily have been funnier if the last 8-10 years hadn't been happening. now i'm just really stressed out about a fictional comet and i need my zoloft more than ever. seriously though, why the fuck did that man charge for the snacks?
for being a directorial debut (on the part of an incredibly talented woman to be fair) this was really solid. i think a lot of people might be unhappy with the unanswered aspects of it, or the lack of clarity or even the decision to film it in black and white and its aspect ratio. however, all of these work together to emphasize the nebulous gray area that being white-passing puts you in. it makes sense given hall's own experiences with racial identity.
(if you're like me and didn't know much about her beyond being a great but very british actor: her mother is originally from michigan and her grandfather was a man of color passing as white during his own time, presumed to be african-american and of native american descent.)
i think this was written well, directed well, and acted well. the source material is also worth a read. however, i'm white-passing myself (south asian, not bipoc) and i do think that my own experiences are part of why i found the lack of clarity and how much of this movie is open to interpretation to be part of what worked for it.
go into this expecting a thriller, you'll probably be bored. it's a drama, and it's poignant and intense. definitely not a thriller though.
overall a decent horror for its time, though there are definitely more frightening entries into the home invasion genre. mostly worth it for liv tyler's performance, and the character mike's scene, the latter of which you know what's coming but the tension is top tier regardless.
the dog dies, but it's quick and the poor good boy had cancer.
so, it's not as bad as people have claimed. i think anyone who goes into a horror film expecting there not to be social commentary is watching the wrong genre. of every genre in film, the only one MORE about social commentary is documentaries. instead, this is a b, c-leaning horror but it's watchable and entertaining compared to some horrors i've had to sit through. it's a cute addition to the slasher genre; yet, it's set at a campground and there's a masked killer, so it's also very on the nose. the acting isn't bad and there's a varied cast that does feel cohesive. it's just also an average horror film that i think could have been equally successful as just a drama/thriller about a gay conversion camp, or a campy comedic take on a very unpleasant subject (which has been done but less so than modern american horror).
either way, i'll watch anything kevin bacon does, tbh.
there's no mystery here: it's just a very sad story, and shows the denial stage of grief pretty vividly.
the fact is that we don't often think about the witnesses in situations like these. the families experienced horrific tragedy, but at the end when one of the men who pulled the bodies from the wreckage breaks down talking about how he cried, how each time he checked for a pulse there wasn't one, i mean. jesus christ. that poor fucking man. that's indescribable trauma.
well acted all around, 100% recommend. pacing made it sluggish in the middle, but i loved it despite that. the third act makes the slow second act worth sitting through, hands down.
most of what i want to say about this would count as a spoiler so instead what i'll say is, this movie (and its source material) is unsettling and ominous in a number of ways but once the movie is over and you sit with it for a minute, you'll realize that what felt like twists and unseen motives were all served up to you on a silver platter—which is perhaps the most important theme and what makes it so effective.
also—bunnies do not have a good time in this film. the dog doesn't die though.
i honestly think that it's very easy to tell that this was filmed on an iphone. the acting was solid, but the feeling of the movie just. hit the wrong way. i genuinely think it should've been made with traditional cinematography instead.
this feels a bit like a parody of horror films at times and because of that it's hard to know whether i'm supposed to be taking it seriously or not at any given moment. but it's definitely entertaining. knowing the cast can actually act (sometimes.....) and that m night shyamalan can do great things directorially (sometimes) makes me think that maybe everyone just had fun being ridiculous with this movie in the production phase and the result is a quirky, melodramatic horror.
love that these people couldn't manage to socially distance effectively at all - i think watching this in 2021 made it a lot funnier to see people screaming about needing to avoid large groups while also saying not to split up or get separated.
honestly much better than i expected it to be. i've seen bella thorne do a lot worse, her acting in this was believable and reminds me a lot of vanessa hudgens' darker roles. but lord time and surgery have not done mickey rourke any favors, looking at him was not a great side effect to this movie. twists were pretty good for the revenge thriller genre—it's pretty easy to see what's coming but it's still unusual enough of a choice to be invested the whole time. movie definitely starts out stronger than it ends, but it's worth a watch either way.
man. what a great ending.
all this did was make me mad then sad.
a really solid adaptation! i think netflix should be in charge of adapting all of stephen king's works from here on out. this was a good, uncomfortable watch—since many of his books are uncomfortable reads, it's nice when a movie pulls it off as well as the author did. and i cackled when gerald referenced cujo. the acting in this movie was A+, carla and bruce had amazing chemistry and carla excelled in playing both parts of a mind psychologically tormenting itself and desperately trying to survive.
a huge variety of jokes, but still cohesive once it wrapped up! i loved getting to hear all of the accents he's been working on. it's hard to pick favorite moments, but i'd say great britain colonizing india is pretty high up there.
i'll never get over how emotionally captivating this franchise manages to be considering how many special effects go into each film, and the amount of suspension of disbelief required to lose yourself in the setting. to be fair it's as much a reflection of the real world issues going on today (and decades ago, depending on the movie in question) as it is a sci-fi dystopia, but damn. there aren't enough award for the number of people who must be responsible for making caesar so incredibly real.
As a movie looking back at a period of mass hysteria and paranoia, and the issues of trying to use regression "therapy" to work through traumatic events, the film is great. Truly. But going in with the expectation of it being a horror-thriller type of movie makes it incredibly disappointing. Again, as commentary on what it's based on, I think it does a solid job; being that it was marketed as something else, it's inevitably a letdown.
