Carly Leonard

This was a huge disappointment, as someone who enjoys Edgar Wright's work, I went into this film very excited as horror is one of my favourite genres to watch, however it was overall a very negative viewing experience. First of all I just have to comment on the awful accents, they were very bad and took me out of the viewing experience quite a lot. It's a very stylised film, I'll give it that, the cinematography is beautiful. But that ending, the 'twist' is not at all surprising or good, but triggering and offensive. Spoilers ahead, but to make the main villain of the story, the r*pe victim, was just so demonising and awful to see. I saw an interview that I think Wright did, where he defended his controversial ending, calling it female empowerment because 'you don't agree with what she has done, but you sympathise with what she's done'. Not at all did I feel that. I completely agreed with her actions, and the very fact they tried to paint all the men who had traumatised this woman with coerced r*pe, as victims, is disgusting to see. The shot where she sits in the burning room broke my heart, not because it's sad, but it made me feel so hopeless as a victim myself. If this is how we are written into films, as victims gone mad with trauma, turned into murderers who then give up instead of trying to heal and move on with life, then what is the point in living? For a film to make a whole bunch of survivors feel so hopeless and even suicidal, is it good? Or is it extremely harmful? Horror films love to paint mentally ill people as murderous psychos, and it is so harmful and contributes to a very negative stigma. I do argue that you'd have to be somewhat mentally ill to murder someone in cold blood, but these films really emphasise on the mental illness. So this film has contributed very negatively to the already awful stigmas that SA victims face, and it's very ironic that Edgar Wright, a man who has worked with an alleged r*pist, has made his new movies villain a r*pe victim. It feels extremely icky. This film caused mental damage to me and many others, there is a reason why the ending is controversial, not only is it a cheap twist, but its an offensive one.

Bad, the only good thing about this movie is the charm Marilyn brings to her role, Richard is unremarkable, even with a fantastical imagination. I understand it was a different time but 1950's Hollywood is full of misogyny, it really doesn't hold up today at all, I don't understand how anyone could enjoy this now, maybe a very simple, boring white man could enjoy it, but that's exactly what it is. Bland. Marilyn is the diamond in the rough, not because of her beauty, or her sex appeal, but because she is a genuine excellent actress who brought a lovely, ditsy sweetness to her character, the only fleshed out thing about this movie, and I think that is all Marilyn's doing. Otherwise, it's just bad. I don't care the nostalgia 1950's Hollywood brings, this movie is bad, and no nostalgia can block that. Everyone else has rose tinted glasses and can look over the aged "comedy", the misogynistic undertones and the sexualisation of Marilyn, and all the other women in this movie. I cannot. It gets 2 stars, purely for Marilyn's performance.