Where's Rose

Took me a while to get round to this purely because some of the reviews were very negative.

When I did eventually watch it, I was so glad I did.

It's a great little mystery horror. Despite a low budget, the cinematography is great, the acting is on-point (with a few forgivable exceptions) and the script is clever. Theres' a twist that is sign-posted throughout but never obviously enough that it ruins the ending. I had suspicions of what was going to happen but still found the final reveal rewarding.

There are several negative reviews on IMDB but, for the most part, these seem to miss the point. In particilar, a review titled "Doesn't make any sense" misses the point entirely. There's more than one way to interpret this film and there is a lot of scope to unpick the symbolism; that reviewer clearly just took the whole thing literally.

As I said in the title, if slowburn horror appeals to you, and you don't mind lower-budgey (but still very well made!) indie films, you could do a lot worse than this!

My main question after finishing this one was: What?

Seriously, I have no idea what this movie was about or how it wrapped up. It began with a simple enough plot: A little girl goes missing and when she's found, her overachieving older brother feels there's something different about the lass.

And thus ends the only part of the movie I understood. Maybe there's a lot of symbolism flying over my head here, but to my eye, they just mangled this story to a bloody, unrecognizable pulp and put haunting music over it to fool you into thinking it was a horror movie.

I'd be worried about spoiling the ending for new viewers, but truthfully, bros. I don't think I could if I tried. I honestly don't know if this was a story of madness, a creature feature, or a tender Lifetime film about the importance of family, or perhaps a cautionary tale about the trouble with killing siblings.

I thought the little girl was a fine actress. She was downright spooky at times. So there. I said something about the movie, can you just leave me alone now?

What a huge waste of time. I couldn't last longer than 20 minutes. Some of the worst acting I've ever seen. And nothing has happened yet.

This could have been shot on a phone.

It looks cheap, it feels cheap in every way.

Acting is so bad it looks like comedy sometimes. Especially the boy. Terminator has more emotions than him.

These reviews with 9s and 10s obviously are fake. One just has to watch 5 minutes to know this is not a 10 movie. If anyone thinks this is as good as the godfather then they aren't very intelligent.

I don't understand why real reviewers don't bother reviewing to help other people.

Day #2

So, this is a bit of a strange one. The ambition was there and Mathis does a great job overall but the treatment used to cover the overall theme may have been a misstep.

Hovering somewhere between a Lifetime Sunday Feature, Arthouse and Fantasy (think Guillermo del Toro) the movie is over before you can truly commit.

The flow and pacing were acceptable, and I credit Mathis for attacking such brave subject matter, however it never truly gels and one feels sated solely from the socially conscious message, getting nothing from the horror elements at all.

Also, the acting was very uneven, save for Ty Simpkins, Annaliese Judge and Skyler Elise Philpot.

5.5/10

#31DaysOfHalloween2022.

First of all, the acting is fine. I don't understand why IMDB reviewers love to jump on bandwagons and parrot each other like birds in a forest, but the acting is FINE. Some of the actors were obviously more talented and experienced than others (the mother was a clear standout), but everyone did their best and were believable, for the most part. The only really rotten apple was the titular child, Rose. She is not very talented, and delivered her lines with all of the aplomb of a grade school production of Hamlet. So, the reviewers criticizing the acting are either just being nasty for no reason, or just want to add another penny to the pile. Don't even bother listening to those people.

As for the movie was fine, nothing to really call home about. It wasn't scary, the special effects were a joke, and the script was as simplistic as it gets with nothing even remotely unique happening. But the final act came out of left field, tied everything together, and made a truly mediocre film watchable. Let me tell you, those last 20 minutes had me INVESTED in what the ending was going to be. For that alone I bumped my review up 2 points.

The real horror in this movie can be found in the horrible parenting on display. You raise a son to his college years, fill his head with all of these delusions of grandeur because he's good at throwing a ball, and wonder why he behaves the way he does. Bad parenting is scarier than any Hollywood monster could ever hope to be, because it CREATES those monsters. Teach people to do their damn jobs as parents and so many of societies issues would disappear overnight.

That being said, movie? Mediocre.

Ending? Worth the run time.

Scariest thing about the movie? Entitled teenagers.