Paradise Cove

This felt like one of those cheesy made-for-TV Lifetime movies, but worse. The concept story was actually decent - and the main reason I gave this film a chance, but 15 mins in, it felt like a high school drama class production.

Paradise Cove was newb writer Sherry Klein's 5th writing credit, all previous mainly TV movies (which explains the Lifetime TV movie feel). Considering she's a newb, there's some forgiveness for her long dragged out screenplay. It had decent continuity, but lots of plot and technical issues, as well as many "huh" and "wtf" moments. It was highly predictable, with nothing left for the imagination, and the scenes were long and dragged out. The 103 min runtime felt like 3+ hours with the terribly slow pacing. This screenplay needed to be cut/edited down to "at most" a 1 hour TV movie length. You can pretty much fast-forward this film at 10x faster speed, and be done in 15-20 minutes and not miss a thing - even without hearing the dialogue.

But were there is no forgiveness, is the terrible directing from seasoned director Martin Guigui. He could and should have upped the ante with the screenplay he was given. But instead, it felt like a high school drama class production. He had a great cast to work with, but failed to direct them properly. All the acting felt like a bad soap opera, and I know the 3 experienced leads can perform much better. The only somewhat convincing and thrilling performance was Kristin Bauer van Straten. The cinematography was bland, with a 1980's camcorder production feel to it. Malibu deserved sharp bright summer colors - bright orange and yellows, with beautiful blues for the sea and sky, instead of the drab pale and bland color choices that were made.

The score was ok, although I don't recall hearing much of it, which I guess is better than the loud, overbearing and annoying typical b-grade film scores. I'm giving this one a very generous 4/10. Never mind the two current bogus 10/10's, and I'm sure there will be many more, considering the effort from one-week member "David_Vogel_1", who managed to watch 49 movies in exactly 7 days, and rated all of them a 1 or 10 lol. To see how generous my 4 is, compare it to the professional Top Critics on Rotten Tomatoes where it's at 29%. So, should you invest almost 2 hours to see this? Unless you're an obsessed fan of Todd Grinnell, Mena Suvari or Kristin Bauer van Straten, I'd steer clear of this one.

Plot

A contractor and his wife move to Malibu to flip his mother's beach house and are terrorized by the deranged homeless lady living under the house.

Cast

The consistently weak Mena Suvari stars alongside Kristin "True Blood" Bauer who deserves better than this.

Verdict

This was a film I was entirely unaware of until it popped up on the entertainment list on a flight I was in. Seeing Bauer and being more than slightly tired I decided to give it a try and saying I was underwhelmed is an understatement.

Let me be clear, Paradise Cove isn't a bad movie it's just more like a Lifetime Original movie than a horror film. In fact the more I think about that the more accurate the statement becomes.

Couple are tormented by this crazy mind game playing lady and it never really feels like it's going anywhere and that's probably because it doesn't at all. It plods along, characters behave in rather unbelievable ways, Bauer outshines everyone, Suvari is just dreadful and it builds to a predictable finale that quite frankly makes me wonder if the whole thing was AI made because if an AI wrote a movie it would look something like this. What I mean by that is it's ripped from other movies and is absolutely soullless.

Paradise Cove is a mediocre throw away and forget about movie, nothing more.

Rants

This is one of those realistic horrors but in trying to be it ironically becomes unrealistic because of how characters behave in the movie and they have to in order for the movie to keep going. Characters behave bafflingly, characters allow things to them and then just get on with it in unbelievable fashions which just makes our "Heroes" look week. If people behaved rationally these movies wouldn't be able to exist, that's perhaps something the industry should try to counter.

The Good

Kristin Bauer Not the worst premise

The Bad

Weak leads Entirely predictable That one senseless death trope that I'm absolutely SICK of.

This was such a chore to finish. Rather than scrutinize the story, I'll just touch on what I find incomprehensible...

1. THE SQUATTER: Why does everyone in the movie insist that this old hairy homeless hippie woman is somehow "hawt"? The wife is jealous for some dumb reason, the contractors all lust after her, her fellow homeless friends call her "queen", and the husband fantasizes about her and even lets her tug his chub in one scene...

...When realistically, being homeless for as long as she's been, she'd be rocking a 1970s merkin-style, crab infested bush, with yeasty vaginosis smelling like rank vinegar and expired milk, sporting armpit and leg hair that hadn't had a shave in years, with perpetually un-wiped swamp@ss, and the funk of never using makeup, perfumes, or soap to try and mask her moldy musk.

...And just to clarify, this is not a commentary on the actress - at all - I am strictly talking within the context of the story in the film. There would be an ungodly stench that permeated around her like a bubble-- a fart bubble everywhere she went and had been. It is inconceivable that these characters would be collectively lusting for her crust, or the women envious of her dog matted looks, or the denizens of the town be so reverent to her existence.

2. WHERE THE SQUATTER SQUATS: She lives directly under their house. They know this, we know this, every character in the movie knows this. The entire plot/conflict of the movie revolves around the fact that this couple can't seem to rid themselves of this person living under their house... However...

...Right after CATCHING HER burning all of their money on a grill, the movie cuts to the couple knocking on their neighbor's door with the Sheriff asking for her whereabouts. WHAT?! She lives under their house. The husband literally had to push her away when she was burning their cash. The movie even cuts back to her under their house as usual about to murder yet another guy.

...But then, with no further clues as to where on earth she could possibly be, the sheriff departs, and the bewildered couple give up. If only they had thought to look under the house.

3. PERPLEXING SQUAT like the couple's insistence on doing fertility treatments during the 2 weeks of renovations, or insisting on taking on a renovation project during their month of fertility treatments...

...And Bree's ability to murder in broad daylight right under their house to no one's notice, and the conveniently built ventilation duct she uses to get in and out that they literally installed themselves, and the sloppy editing at the end of the movie like the filmmakers were just ready for this clusterchuck to be over already and had the characters fast-travel from one place to the next with no sense of how.

4. THEN DIDDLY SQUAT: no resolution in the end regarding any of the many murders, the sheriff, the uppity neighbors, or where the couple goes on from here, nothing. It just abruptly cuts to credits...

...Oh but wait, there's an after credits scene? (FYI, I explain it in the "Crazy Credits" section if anybody is curious and had missed it).

Yeah this was dumb.

The most intriguing thing about this movie was that it was SO awful that it borderlines on comical. The acting was on par with a poorly produced lifetime movie, and that was the best part... An emotionally abusive couple moves in to an I'll-gotten beach house with the intention of flipping the property (with the help of their pothead contractor, Griff, who is only good for pretending to get high. The couples plans are put on hold when they discover a mentally I'll homeless woman living beneath the home. Chaos ensues as the couple attempts to flip the property, have a child over the age of 40, all while being thwarted at every turn by "Bree" the psychotic squatter.

This movie has absolutely no redeeming value. Trust ur instincts, pass in this one.

Silly plot, silly storyline, silly characters, silly dialogue, silly CGI...just downright silly!

Movie highlight: A government employee saying 'peace out' to a client, instead of 'goodbye', like a normal human being in that role would.

Would not recommend.