Blake Mongeon

Eh. I gotta say, I'm really not sure where I stand on this one. *Major thematic spoilers ahead. I don't say what happens past the intro, but I say what doesn't happen and what it all means* I love Jordan Peele's films, but this one I felt was not well explained. The whole time, I was expecting some great twist to tie in the intro scene with the monkey. I thought maybe the aliens were controlling animals (which would explain why the horses kept acting up) and that the monkey was being controlled too, which would tie that part in and make the innocent monkey's death rather tragic. I also thought the shoe might have had something to do with it, like the alien's had some tractor beam or something that made items levitate, but (after looking it up, cuz I didn't get it) I discovered that the intro was only tied to the story in a thematic sense. The monkey ties back to the running motif with animals and the shoe relates to the core theme of something so unlikely yet terrible it could only be called a miracle, but bad. In a literal plot sense, disregarding thematic ties, the intro has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story and the whole movie would make perfect sense without it, which is a shame, because it's one of the most magnetic sequences in the film, being the scariest part and also the most curious (which is why it's so disappointing that there wasn't a real explanation for it.) I also though that there was some good tension for a while with the aliens, but like most horror movies, as soon as you see the thing, it ruins all of that. I don't really think this is a spoiler cuz it was shown in the trailer but the "ship" looks like a cowboy hat and was more funny than scary, cuz I couldn't unsee that. *Some real spoilers now* The most chilling sequence was when the monster was hovered over the truck and everything went silent. That part was genuinely great, but these moments were too few to recommend the movie on that alone. The end sequence was at least pretty unique. Seeing protagonists in a horror film actually be smart for once is always enjoyable and having the scary part in daylight is a nice subversion, but again, wasn't scary. I also see what he was doing with the thing invoking the biblically accurate angels look, but I didn't find it scary and it kinda felt like it came out of nowhere. Glad they actually beat the thing though.