Opus

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

A24 recently seems to be having a slump with their horror movies because while Opus has a good concept and a good performance from Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich, it's exhausting narrative, repetitive nature, and bland structure fails to impress itself with it's concept and becomes more of a dull and uninspired experience.

The filmmaker clearly has an vision of celebrity worshipping and cult atmospheres but it feels like a blend of many themes and ideas mashed together, that don't feel earned nor impacted. Including characters that are underdeveloped and at times, unbearable with their bad dialogue and personality. Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich really are the best aspects and even with good camerawork and production designs, the narrative and characters aren't good as they end up becoming horror cliches and predictable structure that leads with no creative moments.

A24 horror flicks are usually pretty great but in recent times, their horror works have been going down and I do hope A24 is able to get back onto track soon.

I had high hopes for Opus, especially since it promised to explore the dark side of celebrity culture. John Malkovich is incredible as always, playing Alfred Moretti, a reclusive pop star inviting industry elites to his mysterious desert compound. The setting was stunning, and the mood was appropriately eerie. But somewhere along the way, the story lost me. It felt like the film wanted to be profound and unsettling, but it didn't have enough depth to really deliver. The characters felt like caricatures, and the horror elements were stylish but shallow. It's one of those films where the concept is better than the execution. I wanted to be immersed, but I ended up feeling detached.

Opus (2025) is the newest movie from A24 and it was very underwhelming, but it wasn't terrible.

Positives for Opus (2025): The movie has an interesting enough plot involving the music industry. The acting is very good for what they had to work with. There are some cool things with the directing style. The movie moves at a good pace to it. And finally, the movie has a very interesting ending.

Negatives for Opus (2025): The plot has some wonky execution to it. The characters aren't interesting or well developed. I barely knew what was happening with the story. And finally, I have no idea what the point of this movie was supposed to be.

Overall, Opus (2025) is an okay but also very underwhelming movie from A24.

Opus wants to be daring and profound but mostly gives in to pretentiousness. John Malkovich is electric as a deranged ex-pop star cult leader, but everything else around him fails. The film throws gaudy images and provocative scenes against the wall and hopes something will stick-little does.

Director Mark Anthony Green is more interested in being provocative than in coming up with a coherent narrative. Characters vanish, tone shifts at random, and anything that attempts to be satirical is submerged in the bedlam. It's like a fever dream of film school with a decent soundtrack.

There's something here, but it's buried beneath masses of over-written trash and "weird for weirdness' sake" choices. One of the most frustrating films of the year-not because it's awful, but because it had the potential to be something amazing.

Okay. Sooooo... uuhhhhh..... how do I start talking about this movie? Well, it's DISTURBING AS FUDGE for a start. There wasn't as much gore in this movie as I was thinking. Honestly, I don't even know what I was thinking when going to the cinema to watch this. The concept is not that bad. The REAL question is: Was it executed well enough to be a "good" movie? Well, it depends on what kind of horror/thrillers you are into. There's a scene in the middle of the movie that made me cringe. The ending wasn't really what I was expecting, which can be a good and a bad thing. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing in this case. The movie was pretty underwhelming, which I think was just trying to build the tension. When blood WAS on the screen, though, there wasn't loads of it. But there was an "injury" (not a kill) that was pretty painful to watch. If you have seen the movie, then you probably know which one I'm talking about. I'm talking about the bean bag one. If you know, you know. The "twist" at the end of the movie wasn't something that I saw coming. I wouldn't say that this is a good movie, but I wouldn't say it's a bad one either.