Don't Look Away

I guess it's because the reviewers are too young or something, but this premise goes back quite a while. At it's peak of internet fame, the most popular version is SCP-173, which one person sort of seemed to sort of remember, and another seemed to know from one of the video games based off of the SCP database. The writer posted it on 4chan back in 2006 and then on the official SCP website once it was established in 2008. Statue that can move freely when no one is looking and kills people via broken neck if not watched or contained.

However, there was also an episode of Dr. Who called Blink, series 3, episode 10. That aired in 2007, so it could have possibly predated 173 in concept, since episodes usually take a while to get made. Most people would think of this as the Weeping Angels episode where those statues that you usually find in grave yards do the same thing, except when they touch you, you get sent into the distant past instead of being killed, which could be a boon or a curse depending on how attached to modern days you are and how well you could adjust to the living in the past. Still, it made for a nice creepy episode given the look of the weeping angels.

There are likely even older predecessors of which I am currently unaware. It frequently happens when I'm reading up on old sci-fi and horror by people like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Jules Verne, etc. That I find people have drawn from them even further up the line than anyone realizes or acknowledges. People don't realize they are watching something based on something that's based on something else, that's based on something else...who knows how far back.

It's not like It Follows, because that creature keeps coming no matter what and no one but the victim can see it, so nothing like this.

It's laughable to even say that it TRIES to be like The Shining and I think people are only saying that because The Shining was on television in the background at a certain point in the movie, but the mannequin seems to have powers more akin to Rubber, the 2010 movie about the sentient tire with psychic abilities.

If I hadn't been crafting with messy materials, I probably would have turned the movie off around the 30 minute mark, but I swear that it's as if they actually filmed the movie scenes in order from beginning to end and learned as they went along. The filming got better along the way, the acting, the sound...

By the end I felt like it redeemed itself as a campy B-horror, so I give it a 6. A little better than the average movie in the pile of disappointing horror movies I've been digging through for the last 10 years.

This movie is like It Follows, except C rated and just awfully put together. It's like an hour and a half long "horror" youtube short. No pop ups. Only way to watch is getting absolutely blitzed out of your mind and laugh at the corniness. The whole time the movies audio sounds like it's recorded from an iPhone. Writing this review in the theatre because it's also empty. That should have been a sign to not watch this movie lol. It's literally the horror game weeping angel. Who the hell thought to make it a movie and downplay the hell out of it?!? If I had it in me I'd go get a manager for a refund but it's after 11 and you can never find an employee except some random 14 year old who don't know nothing.

What can I say about this movie other than that it is about a killer mannequin, which all you need to know to understand what this movie is; I did not know what to think of this movie once I knew the premise, and after watching, it was very weird. Don't Look Away (2023) is not good with it having a dumb horror plot, but it was very entertainingly bad when watching it where I could not understand what I was watching from beginning to end; the mannequin itself was stupid looking and made the movie not scary at all.

The performances in the movie are not good with some characters being annoying, and the way these people interacted with each other to talk about what to do about the mannequin, which was stupid, and it was funny when they were running around trying to avoid the mannequin. There was character in the movie who was insane for some reason that had nothing to do with the movie, other than make a weird scene that is exactly like The Shining (1980) for no reason at all which was stupid in the movie. Also, this other person who happens to have a history with the mannequin, but he does not do much in the third act except do something unexpected.

The mannequin could be creepy looking, but instead it was weird looking and not in an effective way; it was not scary as much as it was funny to watch whenever it showed teleported on in front of the camera in the middle of a scene. The rules or the way the mannequin works is if people look at him and look away from him, but if you keep looking at him without looking away, it will not do anything. Also, I would have liked an explanation on why the mannequin is teleporting around killing people, but instead it does not tell us anything and we are supposed to just accept that it can do this without a reason.

I did not care about the characters, and the movie can feel slow at moments when it is not unintentionally funny when the mannequin is teleporting around killing people for unknown reasons; also, the editing was bad with it cutting abruptly in the middle of scenes and lines of dialogue with there being weird music choices that do not fit with the scenes. Don't Look Away (2023) was not that good, though it has some moments that could work, it still does not work well, and the movie can get off track with its plot where it will focus on something else; this movie is not worth the time watching.

Thought it was really stupid, in fact I feel like the filmmakers were hoping i was stupider than the movie so that i would not notice how much it made no sense. The only thing the filmmakers got going for them is that somehow, they got this released in a movie theatre. That's impressive, its attempts to mimic a giallo-styled slasher film of the 70s and 80s just made it more garbage as I was expecting something cool and unique, but the artist went over my head. Although based on the bad ADR it could have been this film did not have the money needed to be good. I give it credit that the "Slasher" was creepy...at first but not creepy enough to justify the badness of it all.

The acting here is decent.

The production quality is good.

But you can't get over how stupid the premise, itself, is.

It's supposed to be "like a creepypasta come to life", as one of the characters puts it.

Unfortunately, the story they chose to run with is so implausibly absurd, that it's hard to remain engaged with it.

Let alone take it seriously.

Because the killer here is a mannequin that kills anyone who dares look away from it...hence the title of the film.

It might have been a concept that worked, if it were done better.

However, as it stands...it's just not interesting in the slightest.

One of the problems with it is that there are too many characters.

None of which are properly developed...so you don't care about any of them.

Which is why each death ends up being even more anti-climactic than the one that came before it.

Leaving you to sit through one lackluster, and pointless, kill after another...hoping it will end sooner than later.

Because the kills aren't cool.

There's virtually no gore.

And the mannequin is kind of dumb looking.

Which makes you wonder exactly what they are trying achieve with it...other than to alienate those who chose to dedicate their time to watch it.

Because the plot is so brutally bad.

You simply lose interest in it by the time you reach the halfway point of the film.

After the introduction...I really thought this was going to be cool.

But it was all downhill from there...

...straight to the bottom of the barrel.

So don't fall for the clever marketing.

Because this film sucks.

Do yourself the favour of passing this one by.

So you don't waste an hour and a half on it like I did.

2 out of 10.