Sunrise

For some reason I decided to watch this movie without even looking at the IMDB rating beforehand which I rarely do. Man did I mess up and waste my time.

Guy Pearce was wasted on this film but I hope at least he got a decent paycheck out of it because he did try to carry the movie; but....that was too much weight to carry sorry. The rest of the cast was pretty forgettable and I can tell some of them tried but just weren't convincing.

Now for the plot and the pacing.....yeesh...I would attribute it to taking a M. Night Shyamalan movie with no twist or eeriness and combining it with a shoddy origin antihero story like Morbius or Kraven The Hunter. It felt weird and forced. It was boring at the best of times and wacky writing any of the other times.

Don't even watch this if you are bored; that's all.

Where to begin. Okay, let's start with the fact that the actors are not to blame for this debacle. The acting was fine. Although they must have had doubts at times with where the story was heading.

The real failure here must lie with the Director, or perhaps the producers who turned the work of the talented cast into a woke pile of refuse.

If it deserves an award, it would have to be for "most commercial b-roll footage". And it wasn't even symbolically relevant. I was expecting lead credits to be Getty images. Just to add filler imagery to make this film look artistic. Perhaps this was secretly an experiment to see what an AI directed film would look like. Because that is how I felt watching it. This film has absolutely no soul.

The only thing I found slightly compelling was the sympathetic depiction of "both sides" of an issue that really should be settled by now.

So much of the film didn't make sense, that I'm convinced someone either gave up on it or we just witnessed an experiment in AI generated production/editing/directing.

In the end, I walked away feeling empty, angry, and disappointed. For all the wrong reasons.

In a sea of brooding trench coat and hillbullies, Guy Pierce's acting shines like a beacon of hope. Sadly, the monsters seem to be on a coffee break, leaving us pondering life's mysteries instead. The revenge plot? About as thrilling as watching paint dry. With more loose ends than a cat's yarn ball, the film's potential fizzles faster than a vampire in sunlight. And don't get me started on the broodiness - it's like waiting for a magician to pull a rabbit out of an empty hat, mystical but ultimately disappointing.

In a world saturated with vampire tales, you'd think we'd see the bloodsuckers coming from a mile away. But no, we're left scratching our heads as the supposed monster - more like a vampire with an identity crisis - requires guns, gasoline, and fire to inflict any damage. Talk about a plot twist as predictable as a sunrise. I rest my case.

Let me start off by saying that the only thing this movie has going for it is the acting. That's it. Nothing else about it will be acclaimed, thought of fondly, or even remembered a few months from now. It's one of those movies that you're not sure why it even exists. It says it's a horror movie, but was it really? I am fully convinced that this movie started off as a slow burn drama, some executive read the script and said, "You know what this movie needs? Vampires!". That's the only plausible explanation I can think of for such a thoroughly unremarkable film.

I felt absolutely no fear or even the slightest inkling of it during its entire runtime, and some segments felt like an afterthought, as if the film was finished when someone else came in with their asinine ideas and decided to make this movie something other than what it originally was. As a slow burn, small town drama, this might have worked. The acting was PHENOMENAL, so much so that, had it not been as good, I would have turned the movie off 20 minutes in. But every single actor played their role perfectly, and kept me invested in what little story there was to be invested in.

Whoever decided to turn this movie from a drama to a supernatural horror film really ruined what little this movie had going for it. They decided to include a vampire, but this vampire can walk in the sun, has no super strength or speed, is brooding in an unlikable sort of way, and just doesn't do anything that could be considered vampire-like aside from drinking chicken blood. It's really a shame that this film couldn't decide what it wanted to be from the onset, and picking the more fleshed out genre could have made something out this mess. What we do get, however, is ideas that appear shoe-horned and out of place, to the detriment of the entire picture.

I gave this movie 3 stars for the acting alone, because the talent of the actors in this film is undeniable. But with such a shoddy script, no real horror elements, and some really sophomoric looking special effects, the film has absolutely nothing else going for it. It's truly a shame to see such talent squandered by the bad decisions of a few talking heads. Next time, try to pick a genre that makes sense, without trying to fit a square peg in the round hole of ideas for a movie.

Avoid this film. If you must watch it, do so for the acting. But be warned that nothing else about it will leave even a lasting impression.

For such a slow paced atmospheric movie, it was very short. The story is simple, yet brutal. A psychopathic redneck and his crazy mother rule a small American town with an iron fist, killing, blackmailing and generally doing bad stuff. The redneck has a particular issue with non-whites, so he goes out of his way to scare them off, run them off or just off them. Guy Pierce was great for the role. And here comes a mysterious stranger - who is not a stranger - back to seek revenge, that being Alex Pettyfer.

There is nothing more than that. The rest is just brooding people, angry people, stupid redneck people and weird creepy soundtrack. Like a very short, slow paced, low budget The Crow.

I don't know why this film is rated so low. Just because people expected action and got "this too shall pass"? Or because people were systematically abused and they didn't seem to be able to do anything about it, which made most watcher feel sick to their stomachs?

Bottom line: Not a masterpiece, but a film worth watching. The IMDb rating is just wrong.