Kurt Nolen, SOC

This feels like the kind of non-union, new media, vanity project where everybody was getting paid $100/day to shoot up in big bear in the middle of winter (where the afore mentioned unions were virtually guaranteed NOT to come knocking on your door trying to shut your show down), where the clueless millennial boyfriend/girlfriend writing/directing team brought all their weird baggage to set every day and beat up their crew with their toxic relationship and constant need for group therapy to make even the most menial of decisions, where the incessant low grade food poisoning and lack of available toilets utterly gutted crew morale about as effectively as forcing the crew to work overnights in sub-zero temperatures with too few heaters - or none at all - while the director team sat in a rented RV with heat and hot coco, where everybody was just trying to do their best work and make the best possible movie in spite of the directors’ comedically self destructive impulses to literally run as fast as possible away from every good decision that a more skilled crew member tried to throw their way. There is a good reason to watch this film - despite the glut of entirely reasonable reviews telling you not to: if you are teaching a college level course on the topic of entertainment industry best practices, this is the ideal case study of where every single good decision that could have been made was rejected in favor of the actual worst possible decision available. The actors were doing their job: they were portraying their characters at the highest level of their skill possible (except the director who decided to give himself a role in the film... I mean, OF COIRSE he did, but Jesus. Come on), but much like everything else the directors had access to on their set, that skill was clearly not appreciated, so the investment in skilled acting talent more or less just sat on the table with the rest of the production assets at their disposal, while they probably bickered at video village for 35 minutes about whether the kid from 13 reasons why should look down the hall after he enters the room, or just go to the kitchen. (Side note: it doesn’t matter which f#%kijg way he looks down the hall. Just tell the actor what he’s supposed to be thinking about, or how his character is feeling in that moment and trust the actor to do their job for once). And NONE of that acting talent means anything if the characters have zero context in the film and they just wander through the woods like the crew probably wandered through the woods looking for better catering (I’m talking to you, Martha). D- for editing here. Seriously. This is the kind of move where the whole crew gets fired (with the exception maybe of one department head who only looks out for #1) because the toxic baggage director/producer kids didn’t know how to handle adversity of any kind and a massive health and safety issue on set, then come back a few months later To finish shooting with a small crew of inexperienced replacements who will just say yes to everything regardless of how dumb the requested action is. (... I’m willing to bet that the incomprehensible dead dad backstory was shot by the replacement crew... what do you think?) This is just the worst kind of pointless, self aggrandizing, new media, empty calorie flotsam that robs you of 90 minutes of your life while setting up a clear opening for a SEQUEL?!? Shame on you, directors. Take that 90 minutes and call your mom. Or tell your dog how much you appreciate them. But don’t give that time to the kind of people who probably promised the entire crew that everybody would get points on the back end and then make them all sign new deal memos 4 months later that omit that key compensatory element. 10/10 avoid.