"In the new entertainment there are no happy endings", says one of the psycho-killers. Got news for you, movie: there haven't been happy endings in horrors for years. The notion that downer endings are a new revolutionary thing, and that this movie (or at least its masked characters) might be treading new ground this way - is laughable. 90% of modern horror films (i.e. films made in the last 15-20 years) have endings in which evil wins. Not only does it win, it crushes the opposition, makes a mockery of them, and then begs (viewers and producers) for 29 more sequels.
This movie wants so desperately to be the king of all plot-twist horror thrillers, but it ends up as a big pile of predictable nonsense. Not every single thing is predictable, obviously, but the three key plot-twists were all failures - pretty much because the writer was foolish enough to phone them in minutes or even ages before they occur. Already during the first 10 minutes, in the meeting room scene to be precise, we get phone-ins of one or two plot-twists. (One or two, depending on the viewer. For zombie audiences, it's zero, obviously.) Of course the stooge was going to be the producer's girlfriend (who didn't see that coming?) and of course the mysterious snuff team was going to invade their film set. The only twist that didn't happen was the ambitious plastic-surgery-deformed TV executive not being part of the scam: that would have made a lot more sense than what actually happened. (Still would have been idiotic though.)
They also phoned in the 3rd twist (the young girl actor being part of the snuff team), which wasn't necessarily predictable early on, but became very obvious several minutes before the reveal: her calmness in the getaway truck was too obvious, a sign of lackluster writing AND directing. Hence the "great reveal" in the incinerator scene, just a few minutes later, was totally lame. The audience was shouting "we're way ahead of you, dumb movie!" This twist makes zero sense too: how could the snuff team possibly know that she'd get cast a week earlier? To use her as a "mole" they would have had to have known in advance she'd get hired in the first place, which is something even they couldn't be sure about. Far-fetched Swiss-cheese script.
Agatha Christie would have a thing or two to teach these clueless millennial screen-writers. She does stem though from a far more intelligent and grounded generation, so there is no comparison.
But that's OK, I can even forgive SC its lame predictability. What I do mind is a lack of realism. This is NOT yet another Aussie horror comedy, despite the first half-hour's somewhat irreverent approach. (Aussies are like that, they just can't help it.) Hence I hold the script to a higher level of accountability logic-wise than I would some goofy horror comedy. That some underground snuff organization actually exists and gets away with it all, in public for all to know, is just asinine. Or maybe the Aussie police aren't even hunting for them? Maybe murder had already been legalized in Australia by 2016?
The show's producer barely reacts to the actor getting his hand impaled with a working tool! Instead of showing concern and shock, the producer can't wipe the grin off his face. This is utterly unrealistic, utter baloney, even for a comedy. And I repeat: this isn't a comedy. Not to mention what a terrible actor plays this producer. His reactions are awful throughout. His reactions to being wheeled in to be cremated alive? Barely much. I've seen people show more concern and emotion about having to stand in a line for an hour.
The two survivors, the love-birds (the stooge and the producer), actually go BACK to the main building (asylum) to search for survivors. Who in their right minds would try to save friends/colleagues while under attack from a large, well-organized, heavily armed, terrorist squad of murderous psychopaths? What chance do they have? Too dumb. The natural reaction would be to flee at great speed then call the police. (Admittedly, we don't know if the cops would have helped, considering that sadistic random murder might have been legalized Down Under by 2016.) By this point the movie wasn't even trying to be half-way logical. It basically started treating the audience like morons.
Speaking of cops, the last scene is atrocious, your standard cop-out ending scripted by a clueless writer with zero imagination. It doesn't resolve anything, doesn't serve any purpose, at least not in terms of concluding a movie. It's almost as if they'd run out of movie reels, and decided to call it a day. Are we supposed to be intrigued by what might happen next? In order to be intrigued, the movie has to fulfill its promise/potential while it lasts. It clearly didn't, hence by the time this drivel is wrapped up I am simply not interested. They could have pulled out three-headed dancing bears at that point, it would have made no difference.
There was some potential in this, but several dodgy performances and especially shoddy writing sunk it.
This movie wants so desperately to be the king of all plot-twist horror thrillers, but it ends up as a big pile of predictable nonsense. Not every single thing is predictable, obviously, but the three key plot-twists were all failures - pretty much because the writer was foolish enough to phone them in minutes or even ages before they occur. Already during the first 10 minutes, in the meeting room scene to be precise, we get phone-ins of one or two plot-twists. (One or two, depending on the viewer. For zombie audiences, it's zero, obviously.) Of course the stooge was going to be the producer's girlfriend (who didn't see that coming?) and of course the mysterious snuff team was going to invade their film set. The only twist that didn't happen was the ambitious plastic-surgery-deformed TV executive not being part of the scam: that would have made a lot more sense than what actually happened. (Still would have been idiotic though.)
They also phoned in the 3rd twist (the young girl actor being part of the snuff team), which wasn't necessarily predictable early on, but became very obvious several minutes before the reveal: her calmness in the getaway truck was too obvious, a sign of lackluster writing AND directing. Hence the "great reveal" in the incinerator scene, just a few minutes later, was totally lame. The audience was shouting "we're way ahead of you, dumb movie!" This twist makes zero sense too: how could the snuff team possibly know that she'd get cast a week earlier? To use her as a "mole" they would have had to have known in advance she'd get hired in the first place, which is something even they couldn't be sure about. Far-fetched Swiss-cheese script.
Agatha Christie would have a thing or two to teach these clueless millennial screen-writers. She does stem though from a far more intelligent and grounded generation, so there is no comparison.
But that's OK, I can even forgive SC its lame predictability. What I do mind is a lack of realism. This is NOT yet another Aussie horror comedy, despite the first half-hour's somewhat irreverent approach. (Aussies are like that, they just can't help it.) Hence I hold the script to a higher level of accountability logic-wise than I would some goofy horror comedy. That some underground snuff organization actually exists and gets away with it all, in public for all to know, is just asinine. Or maybe the Aussie police aren't even hunting for them? Maybe murder had already been legalized in Australia by 2016?
The show's producer barely reacts to the actor getting his hand impaled with a working tool! Instead of showing concern and shock, the producer can't wipe the grin off his face. This is utterly unrealistic, utter baloney, even for a comedy. And I repeat: this isn't a comedy. Not to mention what a terrible actor plays this producer. His reactions are awful throughout. His reactions to being wheeled in to be cremated alive? Barely much. I've seen people show more concern and emotion about having to stand in a line for an hour.
The two survivors, the love-birds (the stooge and the producer), actually go BACK to the main building (asylum) to search for survivors. Who in their right minds would try to save friends/colleagues while under attack from a large, well-organized, heavily armed, terrorist squad of murderous psychopaths? What chance do they have? Too dumb. The natural reaction would be to flee at great speed then call the police. (Admittedly, we don't know if the cops would have helped, considering that sadistic random murder might have been legalized Down Under by 2016.) By this point the movie wasn't even trying to be half-way logical. It basically started treating the audience like morons.
Speaking of cops, the last scene is atrocious, your standard cop-out ending scripted by a clueless writer with zero imagination. It doesn't resolve anything, doesn't serve any purpose, at least not in terms of concluding a movie. It's almost as if they'd run out of movie reels, and decided to call it a day. Are we supposed to be intrigued by what might happen next? In order to be intrigued, the movie has to fulfill its promise/potential while it lasts. It clearly didn't, hence by the time this drivel is wrapped up I am simply not interested. They could have pulled out three-headed dancing bears at that point, it would have made no difference.
There was some potential in this, but several dodgy performances and especially shoddy writing sunk it.