Don't Look Away

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.

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.

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.

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.