Debbie Gee

Interesting premise, average execution, disappointing ending. I may be biased towards nepotism, but as a whole I think Ishana is just unexceptional in what she does. M Night has been going downhill for a while now, and it’s almost like Ishana is starting where he’s currently at, sadly. Guessable ending. Plot holes. Average script. Very run of the mill. The first half was decent so I gave it 3 stars, took two off for the bland ending.

Even though I have ADHD, normally I can sit down and watch a movie without too many breaks. This movie.. well I started at 7pm and have just finished at 2:15am- it was supposed to be a double feature with Smile 2 following (never got there!). I’m a horror fanatic and this was painful to sit through, same old story painted on a different cavas. I gave it a couple stars because the trauma themes were interesting, though it was a shame it was conveyed so vaguely. You’re better off watching Ringu or It Follows.

Many others have already commented on the awkward acting and painful storyline- so my review (no spoilers) will be in regards to the translation of the adaptation from play to screen. Within the first 10 minutes of this movie something felt off. Half an hour later and, having experience in theatre myself, realised this had to be based on a play. Turns out, it is: ‘Cheaters’, by the same director. Unfortunately, the adaptation to screen didn’t transition well and ended up in a poorly executed film that felt clunky and odd. I really felt like I was watching a play, but on the screen, masking as a movie. Once I realised it was a play, it was a little easier to excuse the bunglesome story and acting, but ultimately I was still cringing right the way through. Some directors have the talent to successfully adapt plays to suit the screen, such as Baz Luhrmann and John Patrick Shanley. They understand the transition required, and rewrite the work to give new life to the story. Unfortunately in this case, Jacobs has refused to restyle his brainchild and instead opted to cast a-list performers in the hopes that this would be enough to pull his script off. The cast tried their best, but an actor can only be as good as the material they are provided. If they had have been live on stage, it would have been enjoyable. When attempting an adaptation, a director needs to either tell their audience it’s a play (ie. Wes Anderson), or adapt it to a real-life experience that moviegoers can absorb themselves in. If you do wish to watch it- go in reminding yourself it’s a play.. it’s the only way you’ll get through it.

Disjointed storyline. Clunky editing. If it wasn’t for Frankie I wouldn’t have made it through.

SO pleasantly surprised by this film! - No spoilers - I went in expecting a low budget, average film and instead got some unknown actors doing a phenomenal job of creating a disturbingly realistic nightmare for their audience. I was thinking a harbinger? Really? Yawn. How they managed to turn the idea of ’just another creepy demon’ (that doesn’t actually seem THAT creepy) into an atmospheric and immersive experience through the use of alternating between reality and realistic nightmares was 10/10. I can normally find fault with any movie, but not this one. Loved it- highly recommend!

Not as entertaining as the first. Though they tried every trick in the book to make Isabelle appear like a 9yo, it really didn’t work.. she looked in her 30’s which is funny cos she was in her mid 20’s when it was filmed. The inconsistencies really bugged me. In the original she was a good artist for an 11yo, but in this prequel at 9 years old she’s somehow insanely more talented. In the original she acted like a little girl, she faked tears, played along and blended in.. getting enraged and hurt by the dad, chucking squealing tantrums (sociopathy). 2 years younger she’s vindictive, calculated, incapable of emotion and can barely even pretend to play the role of a child, giving hard psychopathy pathology instead. It doesn’t gel. If they were going to do a prequel, they would have done better with more cgi and closer aligning of the character traits.

As others have said- this is not for the feint of heart, nor for those who aren’t tolerant to/familiar with macabre movie narratives. For those that are, this movie offers a raw perspective of childhood neglect from the victims perspective. Although this tale may sound disturbing, the director has literally gone down the rabbit hole of childhood fantasy to show how dissociative daydreams can turn the most darkest and hopeless of circumstances into one of light and hope. Told through a black and white dichotomy, the viewers perspective will oscillate between reality and fantasy without confusion. This is the first film I have seen of this genre where a director has forgone ambiguity for ambiguities sake, and maintained a respect for his audience’s intelligence. First-rate acting with good pacing, quality cinematography and some semi well-known celebs grace the screen. *** It is fair to provide a trigger warning for those with high ACE scores (adverse childhood experiences), however as someone on the high end myself I do recommend a watch if you’re curious, where you can remind yourself to stop at any point if you wish.

Not for everyone. Best to go in with an open mind and low expectations. What I loved about this movie is the protagonist- yes the same one that’s received overwhelming hate since the movie’s release. What a breath of fresh air though, she’s an unscripted loose canon that causes chaos wherever she goes. How many horror films have we seen do that? You might think ‘barely any- and for good reason’ but sometimes having the opposite of a carefully constructed character plays well into the unfolding chaos around her. What does a crazy character do in a crazy situation? There’s some unfortunate negative politics between her and the director (her ex) which caused her to be portrayed as way more of an a-hole character than she was lead to believe, but still, she’s real and I gotta love her for that. The screenplay is thin, fast and repetitive. The scares are ones we’ve all seen before. For me, Annie makes the film. And I think most will agree- based on her performance you’ll either love it or hate it- as there’s really not much else to go on.

Second act makes up for the first, but third act ruins it all. Freudian and Shakespearen themes dominate this movie. How proudly and excessively this director displays his attempts at true character growth when there’s actually none of significance. If I can summarise without spoilers first- the protagonist had narcissistic tendencies due to an unloving mother. Sex was the defining factor in order for him to ‘heal from his trauma’ (so the screenplay says), by way of a woman willingly having sex with him. I don’t consider this a spoiler is this has been made unavoidably obvious in the first 15 minutes of the film. The director makes this huge attempt in Act 3 to make it seem like he has finally learned how to love and be loved in return- however with this crudely superficial approach it falls hard and dies loudly. Avoid. SUMMARY SPOILER In a nutshell: Act 1 sees man with mother issues get sent into space with a humanised female droid. This droid is made to look and sound like his mother, but in her 20’s. He uses and abuses her as he has with real human women in his past, as he believes no woman can truly love him. Her computing is clever enough to pick up on his overuse of her functions to basically be a sex slave, she ain’t happy but there’s nothing she can do. This man has zero empathy, and left me wondering why I was still watching. Quick google and RT gave it 88%. Ok, maybe it’s going somewhere. Act 2 sees man test his ‘love machine’ to see if she can actually ‘love him’ without her automated programming. He makes a bold manoeuvre with the ship to gain override power over her manufacturer and hey presto- he gets to turn her into “a real woman”. She’s now completely in control of her functionality and can do whatever she damn pleases. Ok.. time to get payback on this cretin.. this has so much potential… Act 3: flop. She withholds sex. He gets depressed. She realises he can’t continue the mission depressed, so due to her programming she tries to self destruct to save the expedition. She sheds a tear. Not sure why as there wasn’t a second of empathy between either of them. He finds her ‘dead’ish body and risks his life to recharge her battery, killing himself in the process, but not before the tritely predictable 3 second mark in returning her battery to her body. She wakes up, and is devastated that he died to save her. Cue credits. Ummm. That’s a hell of an undertaking to keep your hope alive of earning consensual sex from a robot. Wow. Run time 82 minutes. 82 minutes too long.

Giving one star based on the perception of a millennial who saw the original at the cinema. I feel it’s fair to use comparison here, as Blair Witch is using the original as a basis for its storyline. The whole reason The Blair Witch Project became so popular was due to its raw nature and slow story build. For a while, people believed it actually was ‘found footage’, because the director and actors had done such great work at making it appear real. Interviews. Exploration. Strengthening of the characters connections and personalities. Creepy noises and events that were within the realm of ‘normal enough to be believable’. People having true, emotional breakdowns. This movie is yet another failed attempt at creating something that’s meant to be left raw, creepy and real. Way too many loose ends, zero character development, about 50 too many jump scares, plot holes, average CGI effects and terrible underuse of pacing- full on intensity for the last 45 minutes that doesn’t give the audience a chance to breathe. -SPOILERS AHEAD- Can we talk about the creature in the foot? What was it? Why? What did it do to her apart from slow her down and give her a fever? A well-executed movie will have a reason for everything, but this had no point or relevance. She pulled it out, it scampers off into the forest and…..! Oh. It’s like it never existed. So much room for opportunity wasted.. though I also have no idea how it relates to the Blair Witch. Not really her style, is it. I’ll admit I was first intrigued by the use of time distortion, but again.. they failed to do the idea justice. Bits and bobs of ‘oh it’s still dark’, ‘oh it’s the same lightning-struck tree’ and ‘oh they are shooting the footage they watched weeks before’. That last one was almost cool if it had’ve been a consistent theme the whole length, and not just a few random spurts. The noises in the forest. Witch? Bulldozer? Cliche recordings put on a few amps at full volume? A witch pushing down giant trees. Are we watching Blair Witch or Godzilla? The two ‘guides’ were also sadly irrelevant- vague warnings with no depth, not sparking the audiences curiosity and.. ending up the exact opposite of what they said they wouldn’t be- a burden (to the characters and the audience alike). Again, wasted opportunity to add extra layers to a very basic plot. The biggest letdown was seeing the witch. It immediately threw the film into all the other lame cgi horrors that have a disfigured, Del Toro wannabe creature chasing its victims. In both this movie and the original, we hear that ‘people went missing’, that people were ‘told what to do’. That’s the point of the witch- you hear her, but you don’t cross the line of actually seeing her. You keep her as an apparition. Adding in tents flying, bodies being dragged and snapped, the house magically turning into a haunted house of horrors that got one hell of an extension put on it.. it was stretched way too far from the original to be deserving of its name. Coupled with overacting and poor cinematography, this movie appears to be a cheap, quick-thrill knockoff that doesn’t even begin to resemble found footage or ‘real events’. Made for a population who love high-intensity, over the top scares with latest technology to keep it ‘current and relatable’. I can’t help but wonder if the rise in CGI and our instant access to dopamine hits (thanks to social media) will make movies like The Blair Witch Project obsolete. It’s a sad thought. I’m in no way surprised Rotten Tomatoes gave it 38%, and AM surprised it made 5/10 on IMDB.. fairly generous all things considered.