Brightwood

Does a lot with a basic premise. Two characters, one breaking up with the other with no reason for the audience to like either one of them. Are they all ways like this or do they bring out the worst in each other? How long has their relationship been this bad (seems like a long time). Was it ever healthy between them? They become trapped in a vortex jogging around this small lake. So it's all about tension, the tension between the couple, the tension between them and their situation. For a movie with so much tension from beginning to end it was easy to watch. The acting was great as was the suspense. Highly recommend, but know going in you're going to be watching a dysfunctional couple fighting for most of the movie.

As loop movies have proliferated, it gets easier to compare them to the best of the genre, and that's a real problem. At least, being a horror movie, this is unlikely to be compared to Groundhog Day.

There's some division about the quality of the acting. I actually enjoyed it. I tend to be more focused on plot over character, but the amount of contempt I felt for Jen was a good sign that both the script and acting were doing a good job. There's also a good amount of nuance going on, as we hear more about their relationship and what Dan is like, you are left to wonder how accurate her perspective is. But regardless of that, it's hard to fault Dan, since he's at least trying to make things work.

The quality of the loop is pretty messy. There are a few locations along the trail, but most of it is interchangeable, which makes everything pretty confusing. This is where the movie takes the big misstep - it's too confusing in the wrong places.

It should be easy for me to place events in a particular location, and with specific copies of the characters. There are too many copies of each character, and there isn't enough to differentiate them. This most likely intentional, but it tends to frustrate viewers if there's no way to understand what you're seeing.

I was very pleased with the ending. In order to bring the characters together, things get very dark. And I'm always happy to see a movie take a risk like this.

Let's start by addressing the acting: horrible.

The dialogue: Forced, stilted, unrealistic, dumb and cookie cutter. Literally no one talks like that couple in the real world!

Their reaction to what they discover as the main problem they are faced with is so laid back they even crack jokes! Imagine a movie that is trying to be grounded, serious and scary having scenes where a guy being chased by a lion shouts to the lion "Woah... dude, not my a__se! You crazy!?". That's this film.

Or if aliens landed and the people in the movie reacts with casual dismissal before carrying on with hteir lives. That's this film.

I went in seeing it was low budget and giving it a pass because of that... but really, what was the director thinking?

The $14K budgeted movie just gave me a much better time than just about any big budget horror/sci-fi flick I've watched in the last few years. Starts of briefly as a domestic drama before morphing into a bit of thriller, than gets into the horror before revealing the high concept of its plot. Don't want to give anything away, as its best to not know what is coming, but this was brilliantly done, and I'm still thinking about the significance of the ending. The two leads also killed it, as they have to portray quite a few different sides to their characters. Looking forward to whatever Dane Elcar does next.

I won't pretend to be smart enough to figure out all the time loop stuff, but this was a fun ride and I was satisfied with the ending. You're left with questions, but there's a strong message that leaves an impact that mattered more than all the details. I was so surprised by how great this was (especially for free on Tubi) that I'm genuinely shocked at how low it is scored here. I see some valid complaints among other reviewers, but this is objectively not a bad movie. Heck I'd probably watch it again! And I would absolutely recommend it, especially if you're into horror. This movie proves that you don't need a big budget to tell an interesting story.