neilcarlin

I saw some ads on social media and a campaign designed to challenge the potential viewer with 'shock reaction videos'. Essentially i was drawn in by both intrigue and being a big fan of asian cinema.

The movie had it's moments but slowly i was watching just to finish it rather than wanting to. The shock value was completely deminished for me with corny performances of the crazy infected that echoed the likes of Rob Zombie's wife in anything he's cast her in. If that does it for you then this is up your street. After the shock factor let me down there was little left of the movie for me to enjoy. The two leads had little to no character developement... I've even now lost interest in writing a review but felt the current rating was not accurate and needed knocking down a peg. If it's a shock movie you want check out Irreversible or A Serbian Film (particularly the uncut version). These both spend time on character developement and story, the former incredibly so, the latter is the most shocking film i've seen. But in doing so i was more invested in the characters, thereby i care what happens to them.

My review here is broken down into two seasons.

Firstly, the first season blew me away. Within mere minutes the backing music kicks in warming my anticipation for what I imagine will be a wonderful homage to some of the greatest movies of the 80's. And that's exactly what it does, it takes us on a journey, much like it's theme tune, to places so familiar yet so fresh at the same time. It's as if it was a classic I forgot to watch, oozing influences from King, Spielberg and Carpenter and concepts from varied corners of cult movies, TV shows and video games. Once more to it's deserved merit, we leave season one with the story nicely rounded off but with enough of a door left wedged open to feel satisfied buy not mis-sold to. The performances were superb and felt genuine and hats off to the young cast that knock it out of the park.

9/10 - one of the best shows ever...

Now season two. Had season one not been so damned near perfect I'd have not been so critical with my perception of it's follow up. That said it still delivers what we showed up for. It carries on from the first filling in on plot elements that you'd perhaps question somewhat. However, what it falls down on is obvious references. Whilst the first touched familiar memories for me the second season seemed too blatant thus no longer did it feel organic. Kind of like when a kid does a funny dance and everyone cracks up then someone says "do it again" but the kid knows he's being funny and people smile and say "oh yeh..." less enthusiastically. I guess it became self aware, like Cyberdyne if we wanted to ironically throw a reference about it's use of references. Sure being such a fan of the 80s movies it referenced it was a guilty pleasure but we now lose how honest the first season felt and almost like the idea being 'reference-hard' was in hope to net viral stories to captivate fans of the cult movies that it 'references hard with a vengeance'. If I were to see Louis CK and he starting doing Bill Hicks routines I'd still laugh because I love Hicks but I turned up to see fresh material from CK. Obviously this is the main issue I had with the second series, each time it happened it broke the 4th wall a little, disengaging me from the plot. The second season starts strong but weakens in it's final few episodes. In parts becoming obvious and corny, the young kids making decisions for some of the adults lessened the integrity of those characters. The kids essentially muscling their way to being the main protagonists. Either way it was still a good watch and I am still in anticipation for a third instalment only this time with slightly lower expectations.

6.5/10 – still a treat even though I felt a little tricked

Despite the warnings from negative reviews and low IMDb rating i watched it anyway... I've always liked Eli Roth mainly for his near show stealing appearance as 'The Bear Jew' in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds and his movies, though never groundbreaking for me, offered playful b-movie fun. His efforts here seemed to diminish after the initial creation of suspense. Once we move to the second act the script loses any credibility and little is left for creation of further suspense. It's almost as if the idea was to get Keanu to behave somewhat like Nicholas Cage in OMG mode. That idea i couldn't shake and ironically it became what kept me entertained, imagining cage instead of reeves, which wasn't too hard as Keanu seemed to channel the spirit of the rage cage as if he were possessed by him. Don't let my mention of cage fool you, the acting in this movie is sub par, if Keanu isn't The Wicker Man he's the wooden man and the girls act like female villains in a made for TV batman movie. In summary; I found a few things Keanu said in a serious monologue quite laugh out loud funny and the use of a popular pixies track at the end credits reminded me of a student movie using cool music to be cool. All it did was remind me of it's already iconic use in one of my favorite movies. The movie was just bad enough to enjoy it's shitness or i'd have not sat through it. Avoid this if you get offended by crap movies but I'm almost recommending you to watch this for the points I mentioned for your own curiosity. The movie stuck in my mind enough for m to waste time writing this review, i wonder if that was Roth's intention for the audience or he actually took this movie seriously.