You Might Be the Killer Review
Oct. 6th, 2018 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatRemember that horror flick that was written by two bored writers on twitter? Which cast Alyson Hannigan and Fran Kanz in the two lead roles? Entitled You Might Be the Killer?
Well...I just watched it and..it's not very good. Predictable. I did not care about anyone. And I was mostly bored.
Horror flicks aren't unlike mysteries, romances, or any other genre in that one thing must be accomplished at the very beginning of the story -- you have to get the audience to care about your characters. They need to either like or hate them. Not struggle to remember who is who, and what the characters names are...And it is very important that the audience care whether any of the characters die.
* Jurrasic Park was successful because I cared about all the characters even the supporting. I got to know them, I could tell them apart.
* Halloween...I cared about Laurie Strobe and her charges.
* Aliens...I cared about everyone in the film, I was emotionally invested, and I wasn't sure what would happen.
* Terminator -- I care about everyone in that movie.
Even The Shining -- you care about Danny, you care about his family. The viewer is invested.
Kevin Williamson's "Scream" works because you care about everyone and are shocked by who the killers are.
Here? I didn't care. Outside of Chuck and Sam, I had troubles remembering who was who and what each character's name was. The writers were more interested in the metanarrative than the characters. The only half-way decent dialogue was between Chuck and Sam. And we are told very little about either. Outside of the fact that Chuck works at an all night comic/video/gamer store in the middle of strip-mall hell, and that Sam is tasked with running his family's summer camp, there isn't much information. We are also told the cliche rules of "Slasher" horror flicks which were more or less created by far better film makers and writers such as John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and whomever did the Friday the 13th flicks.
Cabin in the Woods which is heavily meta-narrative, is more of a twist on the classic trope, and far less predictable, also I cared about the people in the film and it was fun. This movie feels very one joke. And the joke can go only go so far. It worked on the Twitter feed, it does not work as a fully blown two hour movie on Syfy, interrupted by a godzillion commercials.
As for the twist? Saw it coming from a mile away. In fact I was sort of hoping they did something else. If I were to do one of these things? I would have flipped the casting, had Franz play Chuck and Hannigan play Sam. And made a few other tweaks here and there. My problem with the slasher flick is it has been done to death. We all know what happens. And there doesn't appear to be anything new to say about it. Actually Whedon and Williamson pretty much covered all the various ways it could be analyzed and subverted.
That's the non-spoilery review, below is the spoilers...
The set-up? Sam is running his family's summer camp. And prior to the start of camp, he hosts a retreat for all the camp counselors. He calls his friend Chuck, covered with blood, and sort of out-of-sorts, and says..uhm, I got a problem, I think there's an insane killer running loose around the camp. What do I do? During their conversation, Chuck wonders if Sam might be the killer.
Now there's all sorts of ways you could have filmed this. You could have done it from Chuck's perspective and not shown anything Sam's doing. Just heard it. While Chuck is thinking okay, this is just a huge joke. Then suddenly flip points of view. Or just show Sam and never show Chuck, just have Chuck's voice. The writer's choose both points of view. Also Chuck is having the conversation while she's waiting on customers.
Of course, Sam is the killer. Turns out a dangerous mask was put on his face by a dimwit girl, after he'd told a creepy story about the mask. I spent most of the film thinking these teens are serious Darwin Award Winners. The twitter feed is a lot funnier. Because in that feed, Sam is hiking in the woods with a bunch of campers...and sees a weird mask and decides to take it and put it on. Then goes on a killing spree. In the film, Sam tells everyone a creepy story about the camp ground's history - and how somewhere on the grounds there's a creepy wooden mask that contains demonic powers. And whomever wears the mask wants to kill people, no matter how good or kind they might be. So, his former girlfriend comes up with the great idea to go on a treasure hunt for the mask -- at around ten o'clock at night. Why? I've no clue. Who does that? Darwin Award Winners.
Drew, on of the women counselors, talks him into taking her to where the mask might be hidden. He does, having been there dozens of times and never finding anything. And sure enough she digs up the creepy mask. He tells her not to put it on and to put it away. She decides to put it on his face as a joke -- which backfires on her, big time. He reaches into the dead tree and pulls out bone saw blade and then neatly decapitates her.
And we end up with a killing spree, with lots of blood, intermittently interrupted by chats with Chuck, angst and guilt, and the dimwitted campers trying to figure out how to kill and/or escape the crazed killer in the middle of the woods, at night.
It's actually not that long a movie. But Syfy has decided to add about fifty minutes worth of commercials. So, we basically have ten minutes of show, ten minutes of commercials.
The killing spree finally ends when one of the survivors kills the other one (allegedly) in self-defense. Upon seeing his dead girlfriend, Sam feels true remorse and overpowers the mask, successfully removing it. (By the way? The mask looks a lot like the mask in the Jim Carrey comedy flick...so I'm wondering if they just used the same one?) And talks the last counselor standing to help him take the mask back to the tree and to bury it. Ending the killing spree. She does so...but alas, the mask calls to her, and since she's not as pure as everyone thinks (she just killed the other gal), she puts on the mask and kills Sam. Takes it off, talks to Chuck, and then takes off with the Mask. Two years later, she calls Chuck...with a similar story.
Sigh. Predictable. I would have done a few things differently. Flipped the genders a bit. And had them successfully bury the mask, only to have some little kid dig it up several years later.
That said, what didn't work here -- is the writers played with plot and idea and theme, but didn't bother with character development. Characters always come first. Always. That's why Stephen King's novels are loved and various other horror novelists aren't -- he writes memorable characters.
Well...I just watched it and..it's not very good. Predictable. I did not care about anyone. And I was mostly bored.
Horror flicks aren't unlike mysteries, romances, or any other genre in that one thing must be accomplished at the very beginning of the story -- you have to get the audience to care about your characters. They need to either like or hate them. Not struggle to remember who is who, and what the characters names are...And it is very important that the audience care whether any of the characters die.
* Jurrasic Park was successful because I cared about all the characters even the supporting. I got to know them, I could tell them apart.
* Halloween...I cared about Laurie Strobe and her charges.
* Aliens...I cared about everyone in the film, I was emotionally invested, and I wasn't sure what would happen.
* Terminator -- I care about everyone in that movie.
Even The Shining -- you care about Danny, you care about his family. The viewer is invested.
Kevin Williamson's "Scream" works because you care about everyone and are shocked by who the killers are.
Here? I didn't care. Outside of Chuck and Sam, I had troubles remembering who was who and what each character's name was. The writers were more interested in the metanarrative than the characters. The only half-way decent dialogue was between Chuck and Sam. And we are told very little about either. Outside of the fact that Chuck works at an all night comic/video/gamer store in the middle of strip-mall hell, and that Sam is tasked with running his family's summer camp, there isn't much information. We are also told the cliche rules of "Slasher" horror flicks which were more or less created by far better film makers and writers such as John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and whomever did the Friday the 13th flicks.
Cabin in the Woods which is heavily meta-narrative, is more of a twist on the classic trope, and far less predictable, also I cared about the people in the film and it was fun. This movie feels very one joke. And the joke can go only go so far. It worked on the Twitter feed, it does not work as a fully blown two hour movie on Syfy, interrupted by a godzillion commercials.
As for the twist? Saw it coming from a mile away. In fact I was sort of hoping they did something else. If I were to do one of these things? I would have flipped the casting, had Franz play Chuck and Hannigan play Sam. And made a few other tweaks here and there. My problem with the slasher flick is it has been done to death. We all know what happens. And there doesn't appear to be anything new to say about it. Actually Whedon and Williamson pretty much covered all the various ways it could be analyzed and subverted.
That's the non-spoilery review, below is the spoilers...
The set-up? Sam is running his family's summer camp. And prior to the start of camp, he hosts a retreat for all the camp counselors. He calls his friend Chuck, covered with blood, and sort of out-of-sorts, and says..uhm, I got a problem, I think there's an insane killer running loose around the camp. What do I do? During their conversation, Chuck wonders if Sam might be the killer.
Now there's all sorts of ways you could have filmed this. You could have done it from Chuck's perspective and not shown anything Sam's doing. Just heard it. While Chuck is thinking okay, this is just a huge joke. Then suddenly flip points of view. Or just show Sam and never show Chuck, just have Chuck's voice. The writer's choose both points of view. Also Chuck is having the conversation while she's waiting on customers.
Of course, Sam is the killer. Turns out a dangerous mask was put on his face by a dimwit girl, after he'd told a creepy story about the mask. I spent most of the film thinking these teens are serious Darwin Award Winners. The twitter feed is a lot funnier. Because in that feed, Sam is hiking in the woods with a bunch of campers...and sees a weird mask and decides to take it and put it on. Then goes on a killing spree. In the film, Sam tells everyone a creepy story about the camp ground's history - and how somewhere on the grounds there's a creepy wooden mask that contains demonic powers. And whomever wears the mask wants to kill people, no matter how good or kind they might be. So, his former girlfriend comes up with the great idea to go on a treasure hunt for the mask -- at around ten o'clock at night. Why? I've no clue. Who does that? Darwin Award Winners.
Drew, on of the women counselors, talks him into taking her to where the mask might be hidden. He does, having been there dozens of times and never finding anything. And sure enough she digs up the creepy mask. He tells her not to put it on and to put it away. She decides to put it on his face as a joke -- which backfires on her, big time. He reaches into the dead tree and pulls out bone saw blade and then neatly decapitates her.
And we end up with a killing spree, with lots of blood, intermittently interrupted by chats with Chuck, angst and guilt, and the dimwitted campers trying to figure out how to kill and/or escape the crazed killer in the middle of the woods, at night.
It's actually not that long a movie. But Syfy has decided to add about fifty minutes worth of commercials. So, we basically have ten minutes of show, ten minutes of commercials.
The killing spree finally ends when one of the survivors kills the other one (allegedly) in self-defense. Upon seeing his dead girlfriend, Sam feels true remorse and overpowers the mask, successfully removing it. (By the way? The mask looks a lot like the mask in the Jim Carrey comedy flick...so I'm wondering if they just used the same one?) And talks the last counselor standing to help him take the mask back to the tree and to bury it. Ending the killing spree. She does so...but alas, the mask calls to her, and since she's not as pure as everyone thinks (she just killed the other gal), she puts on the mask and kills Sam. Takes it off, talks to Chuck, and then takes off with the Mask. Two years later, she calls Chuck...with a similar story.
Sigh. Predictable. I would have done a few things differently. Flipped the genders a bit. And had them successfully bury the mask, only to have some little kid dig it up several years later.
That said, what didn't work here -- is the writers played with plot and idea and theme, but didn't bother with character development. Characters always come first. Always. That's why Stephen King's novels are loved and various other horror novelists aren't -- he writes memorable characters.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-07 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-07 02:14 pm (UTC)Of course that's also highly subjective.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-07 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-07 09:54 pm (UTC)