Don't Look Away

There is an actor in the film named Abu Dukuly who should not quit his day job. The acting from most of the main cast is fine, but this guy's acting is soooooo bad, it takes away from the performance of everyone else in each scene he's in. His lines are rushed through and without emotion. When he does show emotion, it's cringe-worthy.

This bad acting from one person aside, there are some creative scenes in the film, but they all happen within the first 20 minutes or so. The visuals of the mannequin are pretty great, as it can look frightening with the right lighting and shadows.

The story isn't terribly strong, and no one shows a lot of remorse for the murders that are happening. Friends are brutally killed several feet away from certain characters, and the emotion and reaction from them is almost not existent. I had a hard time liking any character as a result.

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.

Although it was a valiant effort by the cast, the production quality is not good. The sound is very tinny and distorted. It appears to be a knock off of It Follows. The script plods along and there is no real development. The mannequin is silly's and the editing very choppy and sometimes doesn't make sense.

The direction is interesting and as I said, the actors do a nice job. It's a nice suspense piece. I would not really classify this as horror. As I said it's suspenseful and the mannequin makes it otherworldly.

I am not a film professional and only giving it my opinion as a horror and suspense fan.

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.