Letterboxd — Your life in film

When the guy says to his friend after being paid to drive five young women to the middle of nowhere to some random dude’s compound that is surrounded by a literal electric fence and the women don’t know where they’re going or who they’re meeting, “I just don’t feel right about this”. Wow guy, humanitarian of the year right here (and he’s not even the “heroic” one! The bar is truly on the floor. But the movie’s real flaw is that not enough happens for far too long. The mildly bananas finale can’t redeem a very low grade build up.

Normally a movie made in recent decades with such an obvious period aesthetic is charming. See: The Love Witch, House of the Devil. This is not that.

I’m just imagining an apartment complex where it’s this poor schmuck, the other poor schmuck from Eraserhead and his mutant baby, the gal from Repulsion, and all the other movie characters who are just having the inexplicably absolute worst time and losing their shit and whatever the result would be from that.

When that dude tore open Peter Cushing’s preacher collar to reveal his bare, scarred throat and Cushing gives that vulnerable little swallow? Um, yeah. Clavicles for days on that man. Kink unlocked and hell yes I’m gonna throw hands against the old timey IRS for him too.

This is the first one where I checked the running time to see how much longer was left. It felt the longest and for a franchise that is forever winking at the audience with it’s little fourth wall breaking asides, this one wasn’t just on the nose but a full brick to the face. By the time they call the american refugees in Mexico dreamers I didn’t even have the energy care enough to roll my eyes.

Tubi started playing the color version immediately after the black and white version ended and thanks I hate it. It’s like when you see those pictures of the Roman statues of what they would supposedly look like painted but there’s literally no shading. Congratulations, you ruined it.

The pose at the end as Spader and Unger lie on the embankment together looks and feels so much like that in The Princess Bride after those two lovers share their own near death experience and I think that’s what makes the core of both movies work.

A rare balancing act where the body horror and gore is intense enough to make me cringe and cover my eyes but not purely gratuitous and shocking, and is creative enough that I keep peeking to see what they're going to sever, gouge or vivisect next. Best torrent of blood since The Shining. Also, I don't know why that lady felt like she needed to dress like Mrs. Danvers to commit these crimes but I respect it.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.