Lauren Ratliff-Nass

This was so so bad. It had an interesting premise that fell so flat. I didn’t mind the low budget effects, but the writing, directing, and acting was just so bad. I don’t understand these positive reviews. It’s like they meant to test promising young actors. “Hey look, we’re going to give you garbage and if you can make your audience care about this, we’ll put you in something better next time.” They had zero time or space to build any chemistry or to get us to really care about these kids in any way. This movie was desperate to leech of magic created by movies that came before it. It referenced so many other films and had zero soul of its own. I’m an adult, but I love movies and TV for kids. I also love low budget campy movies. It’s such a nice break from adulthood and I have things to talk about with my god kids. This completely missed the marks with them, too. It felt like a nothing movie. Also, how dare they waste Chad Murray. They guys does a really good bad guy and he could have been amazing here. Can’t forget the premise of, “I’m stalking my home town to find kids to experiment on.” Also, “I don’t agree with how you exist in the world. I think you’re broken and don’t have the capacity to work through your own issues. I will traumatize you in order to fix you. I’m also going to program a computer to fix you, so I can sit back and watch.” Let’s chalk that up to good fun. It completely creeps me out that there is a group of adults out there that gave this movie high praise, with such deep and wholesome messaging.