Rachel Bolton

It was like being at a party and watching someone tell the story of an exciting experience that they have had. But then you quickly realise that they've become too drunk to actually remember all the bits that held it together. You can see all the characters (perhaps too much of some), you can see the satirisation, the milieu is there-ish and then the story stops and you're left going "wait, that was it?"... The dead give away that this was going to disappoint was checking how much film was left as I finally thought it might be going somewhere. With only about 15 minutes of film left to watch, it certainly wasn't heading anywhere groundbreaking. Long story short and definitely some spoilers: some satirised art world who's-who's get their panties in a twist for a dead artist's work. Dead artist turns out to be a creepy, but unexplored, strange, possibly psychopathic person. His dark art makes some pretty generic and not at all scary deaths happen. There is a lot of colour, a lot of talking and not a great deal holding it all together. The trailer sells everything that is good about it and probably does a better job of telling the story that you're intrigued by than the film itself does. Some reviewers seem to suggest that the almost absent horror element was the embodiment of the deceased artist exacting his revenge on the vulture-like antics of the contemporary art world... This indeed could be a fascinating impetus for a horror plot, but it is a HUUUUGE reach to suggest that this particular film came even close to portraying this. The deceased artist is afforded no true characterisation in life and certainly not in death; his psycopathy which is alluded to in the film is a cheap veneer to introduce what were otherwise really poorly executed jump scare moments. Not really impressed. If you like comedy, suspense, an element of the dark and some good characterisation, I would far sooner recommend taking the time to binge watch Amy Poehler's new mini series Russian Doll.