If you can get past the atrocious script/dialogue and some wooden acting, you're still left with a film that isn't sure if it's a seaside-town drama or a horror film. The first 50 minutes is more of a seaside teen drama, not a horror.
It comes across like it was written by a 14-year-old for English homework, with an assumption that using a scattergun approach of throwing in out-of-place swearing, references to TikTok, Instagram, knife-possessing teens, wokeness, gentrication, hippie/hipsters, veganism, a male and female gay couple, and drug taking makes it relevant and cool.
Really it just makes it laughably forced and ridiculous, it's like they've gone down a checklist and thrown it all in for no reason.
Visually it's nicely shot but unfortunately that doesn't make up for the dull schizophrenic storyline, the hilarously bad dialogue and the ridiculousness of events and conversations that unfold.
Nobody seems to question why there's a guy walking around in a "scary" mask with a bloodied baseball bat, they're instead all super friendly with him and even recording him on their phones; at one point a girl watches her friend getting killed but instead of running away waits around to be next, another keeps shouting her boyfriend's name while trying to hide from the killer, to name just some of the eye-roll inducing script-writing.
There's a particularly comedic performance by two policeman, one of which doesn't seem to care that the girl has a massive bloody handprint on her hoodie, and his partner that after seeing him gets bludgeoned just gets back in his police car and drives the killer off in his passenger seat like nothing has happened.
The identity of the killer was obvious and the reason for all the killing was at least consistently stupid/ridiculous.
As a horror fan I'm adept at suspending my disbelief, but it's so ridiculous even that's not possible. Especially the hilariously stupid ending.
Give it a watch if you think I might be wrong, but don't be surprised if you come out of it wanting the 81 minutes of your life back.
