Sunrise

"Sunrise" aspires to be a slow-burning suspense thriller, but unfortunately, the meticulously built tension fails to ignite in a satisfying way. While the film boasts ok performances, the pacing and underwhelming climax leave you feeling like you sat through a long build-up with nothing to show for it.

The film takes its sweet time revealing its secrets, and the suspense starts to wane with each passing scene. You find yourself yearning for some payoff, a jolt of horror, or even a significant plot development.

Unfortunately, the payoff never quite arrives. The big reveal, when it finally comes, feels underwhelming and will leave you feeling frustrated and shortchanged.

For such a slow paced atmospheric movie, it was very short. The story is simple, yet brutal. A psychopathic redneck and his crazy mother rule a small American town with an iron fist, killing, blackmailing and generally doing bad stuff. The redneck has a particular issue with non-whites, so he goes out of his way to scare them off, run them off or just off them. Guy Pierce was great for the role. And here comes a mysterious stranger - who is not a stranger - back to seek revenge, that being Alex Pettyfer.

There is nothing more than that. The rest is just brooding people, angry people, stupid redneck people and weird creepy soundtrack. Like a very short, slow paced, low budget The Crow.

I don't know why this film is rated so low. Just because people expected action and got "this too shall pass"? Or because people were systematically abused and they didn't seem to be able to do anything about it, which made most watcher feel sick to their stomachs?

Bottom line: Not a masterpiece, but a film worth watching. The IMDb rating is just wrong.

In a sea of brooding trench coat and hillbullies, Guy Pierce's acting shines like a beacon of hope. Sadly, the monsters seem to be on a coffee break, leaving us pondering life's mysteries instead. The revenge plot? About as thrilling as watching paint dry. With more loose ends than a cat's yarn ball, the film's potential fizzles faster than a vampire in sunlight. And don't get me started on the broodiness - it's like waiting for a magician to pull a rabbit out of an empty hat, mystical but ultimately disappointing.

In a world saturated with vampire tales, you'd think we'd see the bloodsuckers coming from a mile away. But no, we're left scratching our heads as the supposed monster - more like a vampire with an identity crisis - requires guns, gasoline, and fire to inflict any damage. Talk about a plot twist as predictable as a sunrise. I rest my case.

This subversive garbage from Northern Ireland, UK is not a vampire horror movie and has little to do with the US Pacific Northwest. It's tedious race-baiting that has very little to do with reality.

The sort of backward small American town depicted here does not exist. At least not that I've ever seen and I've lived all over the US including throughout the Pacific Northwest which has a huge disperse Asian population. This film is also insulting toward small town Northern Irish.

The character played by Alex Pettyfer is empty with no depth, although I'm guessing that's how it was directed and I'm beginning to wonder if Guy Pearce isn't overrated. He's played this type of role before in Brimstone, a better film then this one but not by much.

This is a badly produced film that is terribly written and poorly directed.

I was expecting to see a vampire horror film not a social science project with a political agenda.

Where to begin. Okay, let's start with the fact that the actors are not to blame for this debacle. The acting was fine. Although they must have had doubts at times with where the story was heading.

The real failure here must lie with the Director, or perhaps the producers who turned the work of the talented cast into a woke pile of refuse.

If it deserves an award, it would have to be for "most commercial b-roll footage". And it wasn't even symbolically relevant. I was expecting lead credits to be Getty images. Just to add filler imagery to make this film look artistic. Perhaps this was secretly an experiment to see what an AI directed film would look like. Because that is how I felt watching it. This film has absolutely no soul.

The only thing I found slightly compelling was the sympathetic depiction of "both sides" of an issue that really should be settled by now.

So much of the film didn't make sense, that I'm convinced someone either gave up on it or we just witnessed an experiment in AI generated production/editing/directing.

In the end, I walked away feeling empty, angry, and disappointed. For all the wrong reasons.