Z

I watched this movie last night and thought it was pretty good! Keegan Connor Tracy is just such a phenomenal actress and she shines in this film. it's not "scary" per se but the film does have a sense of dread/creepiness throughout much of it. there are a couple of shocking moments in the film that thankfully didn't feel like "jump scares" (i can't stand lame/cheap jump scares). one scene in particular made me gasp and yell out "HOLY CRAP!". lol. it's definitely a good drama/horror movie with very good acting from the entire cast.

This is a trend that more and more horror movies made in the last few years follow. "Z" is another one to add to that list, with a strong start that loses all sense of direction in the second half.

"Z" has the bones of a strong movie though. The main actress plays her role genuinely, and her acting interplay with the child actor is convincing. Most kids in horror movies nowadays get compared to the child in "Babadook" and this child actor is nothing of that whiny sort. He pulls off some well done solo shots. "Z" also looks great. The director manages to pull out everything he can out of his budget (which was around 400k), and produced a movie with the looks and direction five to ten times of the money that went into it. That in its own sense deserves credit, the movie's looks and sounds fantastic for the budget.

Where "Z" really begins to loose it's mark is in the direction of the plot, especially the second half. The beginning of the movie starts off well, and it's subtlety is jarring. It has jump scares few and far in between, relying more on atmosphere. The jump scares it does show are decently well done. Best of all, the characters actually act sane. They reacting to what happens like real people in real life would do, which is refreshing.

Right around the halfway point it looses its direction completely. It's a different movie, like the director switched out with someone else. "Z" turns into cheap jump scares galore, the characters devolve into morons, and the plot jumps off the path laid out by the first half of the film. This all ends with the last 20 minutes that had me peering out from hands over my eyes, not from the horror but from the cringe of the plot.

"Z" turns into a B level horror movie where gone was any sense of subtly and instead everything is presented to you at face value. Nothing against these type of horror movies, but with the potential the first half of the movie showed, it's hard to not be disappointed with how it ended. Still though, the director is one to keep an eye on. If he can learn from some of his mistakes, he can put out something worth watching all the way through. The first half of the film marks that his potential is there.

Z is a gift that keeps on giving.

At first, they trick you into thinking that this is going to be an Insidious/Paranormal Activity/The Babadook mix (+all the Babadook rip-offs). It's rushed, doesn't make a whole lot of sense but still comes as an ok by-the-numbers horror that feels like it came straight from the early 2000s.

The second act is rushed through and then they just run out of the story. Then we get like a short sequel that is built into the main film.

I think that the idea came from a practical joke that was taken too seriously or an attempt to do something different. It probably felt ok on paper, but when turned into a film it just feels more comedic than scary.

The ending just goes off the rails, and again, this could've worked as a bizarre psychological thriller if done better.

You can see several interesting ideas here and there, but as a whole, the film doesn't work so well, mostly because of how disconnected from reality it is.

Keegan Connor Tracy was good in this, but you can see that at times she's just confused about what she is actually supposed to be playing.

Sadly, Stephen McHattie with all his potential was completely wasted in this.

It's not bad and I really want to like it, but there's just too much nonsense that prevents me from doing so.

Also, Z looks very different throughout the film and I'm not sure if this was intentional or not

I feel like I've missed something important, but probably not.

If you're going to go up against The Babadook you'd better make sure every aspect about the film is better and this film falls significantly short in every department.

That's not to say it's a bad film, it's just not as good as it could be. The difference between Z and The Babadook is that throughout the Australian horror we are constantly wondering wether the monster is real, but in Z we are pretty much dealt the full on monster creep early on so the sense of mystery and threat is diluted throughout the rest of the movie.

Story aside what really let this down was the poor quality of the special effects. The house fire in particular was laughably bad. The protracted final confrontation with the beast was a bit long winded and I kind of lost interest.

Not unwatchable but not as good as it could have been. If you haven't seen The Babadook definitely watch it after this.

This concept, at its core, is not the most original, revolutionary thing you have ever seen. However, the way it developed in the third act did feel quite fresh and interesting. Unfortunately I feel as though they cut it off a bit prematurely, just before they could have done something really cool with it.

This movies biggest flaw was its script. It really did the movie as a whole some detrimental disservices. It felt very cliche and underdeveloped and left the actors little to work with. A particularly positive aspect of this movie was its scares. You will likely never see me say this again because I normally hateee this, but the jump scares were quite good in this. They didn't feel cheep and were timed and placed with purpose and finesse.

Although overall this lacked a bit of originality, regardless it still had an interesting twist on a storyline that was maybe a bit familiar... feeling a little similar to Come Play and Babadook. Would recommend.