Das Privileg

Think of The Faculty, made on the cheap.

This German film tells the story of a wealthy family, where tragedy seems to strike the youngsters.

It tries so hard to tick several genre boxes, horror, thriller, sci fi, and therein lies the problem, it dabbles rather than succeeds, if it had provided more by way of scares, it may have worked a lot better.

There's a lot going on, and it's not without interest, there is a mystery which draws your interest, the revelation may have you scratching your head.

Some decent special effects, it is well acted, and shows us some beautiful parts of the country, the scenes from the house are fabulous.

Overall, not terrible, not great, watchable, 5.5/10.

I'm so sorry but this left me so confused and disappointed. The plot was bad and the execution worse, clearly suffering from bad writing. I shouldn't have wasted my time on this.

So many things happening in quick successions and I checked it's only 30 minutes in. The first 2/3 of the movie has a rapid pace like Geminis flipping through the channels (no offence to Geminis everywhere). Kinda like The Crimes of Grindelwald but even quicker.

It's a blend of everything from Resident Evil, Conjuring/Insidious, Us and the usual teenage drama stuff. However with everything happening this needs to double its runtime or a 4-6 episode miniseries. 100 minutes duration is just too rushed.

Production is exquisite, the locations and atmosphere feels authentic. Acting is good.

I'd recommend this if you want to take a break from glacially-paced shows and it should be a much better experience with a few glasses of Sancerre.

They tried to go somewhere here. There was an attempt to create some sort of story, some sort of intensity...there were even rumors of a plot dare I say? But alas, it was all an illusion. Not sure what exactly the director was going for here but if it was a hot mess then - nailed it! Look, a film of this genre (well really one of any genre) can have all the promise in the world, but if it's thrown onto the screen haphazardly audiences are gonna eventually see it for the muddle that it is. In all fairness, if this was spun a different way, and in not such a dysfunctional fashion - maybe it would have succeeded better... Naja.

The Privilege wastes no time as within 10 minutes, there's blood, some violence, an evil creature and a death. The bold and horrifying opening is enough to capture your attention and build your curiosity to know more.

Overall, Netflix's latest German supernatural film doesn't pack any scares or screams due to a rushed plot and weak execution. It has enough bloodshed, gore, black magic and bad guys. But none of them is used in full potential to appreciate the interesting premise.