Film_orr

Didn't expect much, just a retread of typical genre tropes, but it really surprised. Seen so many low-budget indie horror films with flimsy FX and creature design, that I was sure this was going to be more of the same, but it really delivered. I never got the sense this was low-budget and they punched in the FX everywhere it was called for. Never skimped. The final set piece in the horrordrome where the entity resided had enough rendering and atmosphere to keep your suspension of disbelief.

The story was pretty original too, although you can see where they borrowed some ideas from other movies, but that's ok. As long as it's well executed, who cares where the various seeds come from.

The acting is where I had to take a few stars off. Everybody was game, but it just didn't rise to the occasion. They did their best, but it just seemed a little off.

All-in-all, a worthwhile watch. Maybe not the scariest movie you'll see this year, but it had enough creep to satisfy the horror itch and it was very entertaining. A solid recommendation.

I don't think Robert Eggers knows how to make a movie. He can probably write one helluva book. But movie? Not so much. This was soooooooooooo boring (like The Lighthouse, Nosferatu, etc.). By framing the movie through intelligible dialogue, authentic sets and costumes and looooooong and wide camera pans, he thinks he's created a work of art. And sooooooo many people have ate it up.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make a movie. Eschewing plot and pacing and drenching it with low stakes melodrama and endless shadows, all it's created is a chore to get through. Something needs to happen that moves the story along. Not the same thing over and over again. We get it, they are destitute and cursed. And? I mean, they're dirt poor, impoverished and desparate, do you think adding a demonic force is going to make their situation any worse? If you've ever been poor (I have), the true horror of your reality is where you're going to get your next meal from or whether you're going to be homeless next month. A supernatural menace is pretty low on the priority list. Hell, that would be the best part of their wretched lives. It's free entertainment. "Hey kids, check out the Witch! She's funny. Maybe she can give you a ride on her broomstick!" Obviously Mr. Eggers has never been in these dire straights, otherwise he'd realize how tone deaf his "masterpiece" really is.

First, let me start by saying, the Fargo FX television series shepherded by Noah Hawley is some of the best TV drama ever created. Every season was a masterclass on setting, pacing, drama, action and storytelling. When I heard he was helming an Alien TV series (an impossible ask by almost any measure) I actually had hope, and if I admit, a bit of excitement. If anyone could bring the mythical Alien franchise to the small screen, it was Hawley. But alas, the herculean task was a weight too much to bear.

This is a stillborn attempt to rebirth the franchise in a new, original direction. There are zero compelling characters. Every Alien movie (even the bad ones) had a character you could connect with, or at the very least, find interesting. Everybody here is as sterile as tray of surgical instruments. The storyline (so far as the 2-part first episode) is farcical. It's barely a storyline you frenetically write down on a paper napkin in a restaurant. You can read all the illogical nonsense in other reviews, but they're all true. The acting is stilted. I guess when everybody on the show is some kind of robot one way or another, emotional tone goes out the window. The Yutani ship didn't land on Earth, it landed on the planet Vulcan.

Finally, there's just an air of desperation in this whole mess. They want this to be an Alien property so badly, they forgot what made Alien so compelling in the first place. The FEAR. There's nothing fearful about any of this. I was yawning throughout much of it, checking the time. All I could see were faint, green translucent dollar signs occasionally wafting across the screen. As Ripley would put it, "I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them F ing each other over for a goddamn percentage".