The Other Sister

The spirit of Romero lives on in Jordan Peele's heavy handed social commentary horror, for better or worse, but Peele is also very much doing his own thing, for better or worse. I kind of wish I had gone to the bathroom during the final act exposition dump. When the plot shifts from the intriguingly inexplicable to a series of risible explanatory flashbacks, I checked out from any kind of emotional engagement with the action. Then there's a twist that most people (probably?) may have guessed or at least suspected...

All that said, even as the movie becomes decreasingly suspenseful and increasingly silly, it's never boring. The performances are top notch, the humor is great (though sometimes it deflates the horror), and the layers of meaning (both deliberate and deliberately ambiguous so as to generate discussion) are impressive enough. I've seen some bellyaching on Twitter about how on the nose/amateurish some of the sub and supertext stuff is, but I think it's important to remember that in a mall somewhere in America a 14 year old will sneak into this and have their mind blown a little. Refined subtlety wouldn't do. Remember the scene in DAWN OF THE DEAD in which the character explains why the zombies are coming to the mall. Yeah... I needed that when I was 14.