Almost human? More like, Almost a cohesive plot.

Full Disclaimer: This was one film, where I can safely say, they deserved it. Literally everyone that was killed deserved that fate.

• Two hunters: I mean seriously, they are out there in the woods with a couple guns and nothing else. They don’t even have orange gear on to help stop people from shooting them. Not to mention they didn’t have any camo. Being turned into a alien monster was a definite improvement.
• Gas guy: I mean seriously, I hate it when people stare at me while they fuel their car. That plays on people social anxieties. Someone needed to put him down.
• Gas Clerk: Generally rude person. Its not hard to tell someone where they are. Its a honest genuine question hes obviously lost. He was a prick, and NEEDED to die.
• Resident Lumberjack: He was chainsawing lumber right next to his face without goggles. If the aliens didn’t kill him, he probably would have somehow killed himself. At least this way he gets to be reborn.
• Lumberjack’s wife: She didn’t lock the patio door when she was escaping. Don’t say “She did, but he kicked it down”, cuz later in the movie he uses an axe to bypass the lock. Alien Rebirth needed to happen.
• Clyde: This guy has a nice car, lives in a nice house, and offers to pay the total cost to fix up his fiance’s car. For the love of god, why is he wearing a long sleeve shirt indoors. Hes at home. And is a bit chilly. But, cant afford to raise the temperature on the thermostat just a little bit. Has to grab a long sleeve shirt. Being an alien monster, probably an improvement.
• Mark: Seth told him not to go outside, tried so much in his power to stop him from going outside. He goes outside. Then he has the audacity to blame Seth, for not stopping him. Also, lets be honest, his character arc was much more interesting as a alien hybrid.
• Random Citizen: He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Everyone knows seat bets save lives.
• Jen: Think about all the open shifts that the rest of the waitstaff will get to have. Her death is helping lives.
• Seth: Hes such an unlikable person. He loses his temper so quickly. He doesn’t know how to communicate like a normal human being. Hes late for work, for literally no reason. Not to mention he knows Mark is axe murderer and kidnapped Jen, and goes by himself to the house, without any weapons. He chooses head bashing with a rock rather than driving over her, again. Firing squad was justified.

Plot: Aliens decide to fix humanity, one person at a time.

Review: It was like they had the baseline plot of aliens dropping off humans to kill humans, then had a pitch meetings on how to built plot around it, where they tried to do everything. Leaving the movie with a lot of semi built stories that could have been promising, if focused.

“Hey, lets have the alien lights be on the news” ,”Let’s have a friend be kidnapped at the beginning of the film to spook Seth”

This could have been used to communicate the aliens kidnapping people all over the globe, but it never gets mentioned. They could have delved into people disappearing around the country. There could have been an outbreak of these hybrids appearing everywhere, hell murders found on the news. But, instead we get a sole baby faced lumberjack (He has the beard, and wears plaid). He also leaves one of the people alive for no explained reason. Maybe he has something against tattoos? Or old men? If the latter, I’m right beside him. Also, the aliens have lights all over the place for… no reason? The movie could have delved so much more into this.

“Lets have the aliens solely target Seth”

Why? Why did the aliens give Seth telepathic messages, crazy dreams, bloody noses? Why did they call him when Mark procured Jen? It seemed like they wanted to have some sixth sense level of reveal, but they just left us wanting more. I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with this, but the movie would lost nothing if that was just taken out. I mean other than maybe 15 minutes. It seemed forced and they just wanted to try out prosthetic blood, and dispensing it inside a nose.

“Let’s have Seth be gunned down by cops!”

Well, okay first of all, not believable. Seth is white. Cops don’t shoot white people. Also, who called the cops? And don’t say they were just casually patrolling in the middle of some forest. Also, The movie would have been much better if they ended it with Seth being arrested for the murders. It had the perfect buildup for it. He could have been posed as some crazy guy that had weird visions, and obsessions with aliens, who finally snapped. Killing off the main character in horror movies only works when its adding to the story. It allows for a swift blow to the audience. Having him be shot in the back, doesn’t reward/honor the story that built up to that moment. Having him be shot in the back doesn’t add to the story. All it does is give the audience a middle finger for sticking this far along in the film. They could have had Jen kill Seth, and that would have been more fitting. (Except then those shifts at the diner wouldn’t have opened).

“Lets have Mark implant an egg into Jen through her Vagina!”

Why? What?

Quick Shout-outs

1. RIP Rob – He was never seen again
2. ShAkEy CaM
3. All the fetish porn
4. There’s the perfect amount of ax versus human body scenes.
5. Best Doctor ever, “Yeah, nothing interesting here”
6. Good guy coworker trying to get his buddy to get out of his shell.
7. Good guy boss, wanting his employee to rest until hes feeling better
8. Aliens like them a good light show

Favorite Thing: This movie portrayed violence really well. Keeping in mind, there wasn’t a lot of money available to them. I thoroughly enjoyed when the hunters found him, he was just a clean executioner. Like, he didn’t waste time, he just kept killing, there wasn’t a hesitation. It really painted how inhuman he was. Also, I’m not a serial killer I swear. I just enjoy story telling through actions.

This movie is aptly named because your constantly waiting for the movie to cut out to the director to play the actual movie. Unfortunately, that never happens

Plot: A man stays at a motel with questionable customer service.

Review: I can give this movie a lot of shit ( and I will) but the cast did an great job of portraying the characters they were given. It never felt like I was watching a people pretend to be characters. They emotion they portrayed, and the way they presented their bodies, was amazing. They used their surroundings to their advantage.

The series of films on Hulus’ “Into the Dark” series, are genuinely interesting thought concepts brought into the stark reality. This film was not that. The entire set of character are… weird. There’s a police officer and a sister that are both walking stereotypes, which isn’t a bad thing. At least with stereotypes, theres some sense to the way they act. The police officer being tired of petty shit at like midnight, makes perfect sense. The sister egging her brother on to trying to be more open, is how I’d assume a normal sibling would act.

But, the brother. His entire character is a introverted germaphobe, that enjoys being an asshole anonymously online, madly in love with his ex, and talks shit about people behind their backs. He has no character arc. He never changes. He never really opens up, and when he does its because of alcohol or drugs. He never stops being a germaphobe, except for when the directing crew forgot he was supposed to be one. No germaphobe would stay at a seedy motel, no matter how much hand sanitizer and windex they bring with them. I kept anticipating a much more amazing story, where some harmless pranks causes him to snap and become a serial killer.

The hotel worker, Chester. He just likes fucking with people until murdering them. Why? Because that’s what he likes to do. Its a very solid hobby, and he seems to get a decent kick out of it. he also likes having drugged out people drive a vehicle he is in, because reasons. It would have made more sense if they had him be more than “just crazy”, if he had some level of multiple personality disorder, they could easily have expanded on his character. Instead of some guy that switches between being decent, and kind, to psychotic. Not to mention the “escalating” pranks, weren’t really escalating. They were more of a sinusoidal shape graph of intensity.

There were a lot of dumb moves that Chester and the brother did in this film, but they could be written off by how stupid the characters were.

The biker served no purpose. Though, he hinted at how this film could have almost become an X rated production. Which, almost makes sense. These character up to that point could have been directed for a porno, which honestly would have been great plot building for a porno, but then realized they couldn’t go that route. So they wrote off how to end it from that point on the fly.

Also, I love dogs, but I couldn’t imagine having enough places to trake my dog that would mean that I would specially design my passenger seat to not have an airbag. Or I would at least, have kept the doggy strap chair on that seat. Also, that means she only travels with her dog, and never any humans. Which honestly, relatable. Or she makes them sit in the back, where they belong.

Quick Shout-outs

1. Online troller getting positive feedback online (I’m low-key jealous)
2. Chester’s muscular ability (still jealous)
3. The brother’s massive thing of hand sanitizer, at least Costco offers funeral services too
4. Being able to pull off the entire film with a small cast.
5. The hotel owners being dead, for literally no reason ( Chester already was established to be insane, and know to hide bodies.)
6. The cameras, for really no reason, being there.
7. The psychedelic drugs scene being unnecessary, and a blaring distraction from the film
8. The sister’s inability to text back
   1. Females not texting back? I’M NOT CRYING, YOUR CRYING
9. A woman loving her dog taken to the extreme, being the protagonist’s greatest strength
10. Was Chester using the motel cameras? The world may never know.
11. Also, Love Note vs Almost Newly Weds, BATTLE OF THE CENTURY

Favorite Thing: The set design was on point. The scenes were put together in realistic situations with lighting that helped paint how to feel. Larry (I remembered his name!) walking into the bar, really put me on edge. It worked really well alongside Chester’s vocal changes when he was talking/laughing. The siblings trying to escape the motel through the narrow parking street around the motel. The motel rooms were designed to look like modern motel rooms, they didn’t take any cheap shortcuts to paint them as any nicer/creepier than one would expect them to be.

More like The Curse of Lori (you know, from the walking dead), because of how much you wonder why some of the characters just aren’t dead. (Its worth mentioning it’s hard to be clever with word play with a title like that).

Full Disclaimer: The movie in of itself was an enjoyable experience, and will keep you on the edge of your seats waiting for the next jump scare. I’m also not the best at name memorization, so I’m gonna be as indirect as possible.

Plot: A ghost lady continues her favorite guilty pleasure after death.

Review: Props to the first “monster” to have some level of productivity. Relentlessly she is either on screen attacking, or your waiting for her next appearance. That being said, she doesn’t have a clear motive. Its established she likes to drown kids. Shes good at drowning kids. She honestly has her dream job. But, at moments she just misses opportunities to drown kids. She is holding the protagonist’s daughter underwater in a bathtub, and just has to hold on for like half a minute (I don’t know how long it takes to drown a small girl) to kill her. She’s having the time of her life watching this girl struggle. But, just lets her go.

She appears to grab the daughter at one point by the pool and just lets her go with a magical disappearance. Just leaving her with burn marks on her hands. I’m no expert but a pool seems like an ideal drowning spot for a young girl.

Though, while it is easy to laugh at the faults of a demon mother ineffectively drowns kids, with great stamina, the human characters also behave interestingly. The grieving mother locks her kids in a closet with magic eyes drawn on the door, AND expects the cps lady to be okay with it with no explanation. Not to mention she convinced her kids to sit quietly in their, though to their defense in the 1970s lost of people were staying in the closet. Crazy lady also has the audacity to blame cps lady for letting her kids out of a closet, they probably would have spent their entire lives in, and getting murdered by a crazy demon lady. Then to have a priest magically smoke her personal evils away, without ever having asked him for help, or him seeing her magic wrist scars.

Also, shout out to the protagonist wearing only blue long sleeve shirts. Way to symbolize “Still grieving and slightly cold” into an article of clothing. At least it can dry quickly.

The protagonist’s daughter also risks everyone’s lives for a doll that she has not once actually been shown to care for. I refuse to believe that mother knows what toys the girl likes more than the girl does.

All characterization that happened for the two kids got summed down to, Girl likes reaching for things. Boy wants to be like dead dad. Then the movie blindly uses this too make simple plot developments, and nothing else. The girl in obvious ways. The boy just to adventure out of the car at the crime scene? It really seemed like this movie did a lot of minor things to buffer up and add story, which is only okay if what’s added actually adds to the story. There are too many details that are added then never revisited, or built upon.

Nice subtle way to include this movie into the conjuring universe, without directly impacting the conjuring universe. These subtle immersions are more of what the film world needs, to help expand a cinematic universe, without stories intertwining. Not to mention we now have the magical ability to make an entire body of water holy water, which has a nice comical appeal. I take back this appraisal if this is building up to a rated R ghost busters spin off against some super evil cgi baddy.

Quick Shout-outs

1. Demon lady making sure girl’s hair is well soaked in shampoo
2. Coworker/family friend, who’s sole purpose was to deliver pizza
3. “Lets invite the cps lady to a crime scene”
4. “Let’s take my kids to a crime scene”
5. Poorly targeted cps worker that is just trying to help out
6. Some honestly amazing jump scares (and I hate cheap jump scares)
7. Body physics, need I say more?
8. Great amount of exposure for a demonic presence to keep her scary, but not over expose.
9. Perfect house for ghost haunting, furniture and all. Almost like it was designed for it…
10. Ummmm no family dog?
11. This movie literally took place in only a couple of days, I just can’t love that enough.

Favorite Thing: By far was the poolside scene with the umbrella. It was cinematic gold. The lighting, the prop positioning, the appearance of the La Llorona, it was perfect. There’s not a single thing I could have seen be improved. All I ever wanted in a horror movie, was captured perfectly in that one moment.