Daniel Horton

Quite possibly my least favorite movie now. It was ambitious in accordance to it's plot and symbolism, but still falls short. The story has so many weird, poorly added elements that seem like symbols of things. Like maybe the eels were representing evil, but the end of the movie just shows they were there for dramatic effect. So many possibilities but they were quite poorly acted apon. The whole movie was confusing and difficult to follow. It gave viewer hopes that by the end of the movie, you would understand what the various symbols mean, and what the overall message is. I was expecting enlightened commentary on day to day life, how in the end, life is worthless without some kind of love or meaning, and that in fact, we need a cure from what society poses as "wellness" (which could have been such an easy theme to follow through with) but instead the message took a back seat to a less than intriguing, almost comical story based around a discount fountain of youth. Not only this, but the whole story could have been squeezed into less than an hour and a half, but instead it dragged on with pointless scenes and elements. Multiple times I felt the director was trying to get some awe factor out of it's audience with it's gore or disgusting imagery, which most of which could have been removed entirely. It's only redeeming factors was it's musical score and cinematography, which as a whole was marvelous. Can't give it more than a 3/10. Don't waste your time or money.

Originally, I had no idea what to think of this movie, but as time moved on, the absurdity set in. The movie starts off incredibly strong, with one of the greatest intro segments i've seen, and quite possibly my favorite of all time. A scene of a violent car crash, interrupted by large red title cards in total silence, creates this jarring sense of excitement, and absolutely loved that. The plot thickens later, with some phenomenal scenes of drama between the three characters, one of which may be in my top movie characters of all time (Emmett) for his carefree personality contrasting the others so well. The interactions sometimes seem forced or out of placed, with humor not fitting to the mood of the film or scene, but these do not draw too much from the overall flow. There is a constant sense of dread, as you learn more of the motive behind the main antagonist, and his intentions with the characters. His character is well designed, and creates the suspense needed in a Thriller/Drama like this. Despite the numerous well shot scenes, and brilliant scripting, i'm sorry to say the ending is absolutely horrid. It's almost surreal that the directors could include this in the final product. It goes from a Horror type setting, to a sci-fi alien fight scene that lasts 20 minutes longer than it should. I realize it is a spiritual successor to cloverfield, but up until this ending it literally could have been it's own movie, and you could have never possibly known. It seems almost close to a cash grab to label this under the "cloverfield" umbrella. Following this, the protagonist completely goes against the "Do what I can to survive" determined yet flawed character archetype being built for her, into this "Savior-of-humanity action hero" role that leaves me unsatisfied and open-mouthed as I realize that, in fact, they did not accidentally use footage from the new predator movie, but that someone actually figured this would be a good idea. The movie very well may have been one of the best movies of 2016, definitely top 10 at least, but because of this absolutely disgusting ending, and a few other shortfalls, I can't give it more than a 5/10.