#Horror

Holy sh*t you guys, this movie is absolutely terrible, I can't possibly sugar coat that, or make it any simpler to understand. This movie is atrocious. Supposedly inspired by actual events, though the Wikipedia page seems to say that those "events" were the fact that the director knew someone affected by cyber-bullying, but I digress, and feel free to send me the real story.

Now, I recognize that when it comes to movies about bullying, or teens in peril, we are supposed to take them seriously because BULLYING YOU GUIZ, and I'm sure some people will give this movie more credit because of that, but the movie is just fundamentally broken on every front. Writing, acting, editing, production, the whole movie doesn't work, and it was a genuine chore to get through. While some may consider the ending to be "totally f***cccckkkked upppppp", there's just nothing there and if there is, it's buried deep under a huge pile of confusion and garbage.

The first issue I had with this were the actors. The teen girls cast in this movie are awful. Their characters are completely unredeemable and unpleasant, and the performances given from all of them border on being totally unwatchable. We essentially spend the first hour and ten minutes (no, that's not an exaggeration), watching these girls be horrible to each other, and watch their garbage parents be horrible as well. There's not one character in the movie who I had much sympathy or care for. They make attempts to create sympathetic characters, giving some of them ham-fisted back stories regarding suicide or just having them be taunted for their weight. Now, I don't mean to say that teens don't have bad lives, or hard times, or taunt each other, but the way that they are portrayed here creates an insanely unbelievable bunch of human beings. Nothing feels genuine, with the exception of the total and complete obsession with their cellphones.

On the topic of their cellphones, the girls all seem to be obsessed with the same app, which is some kind of bizarre combination of Candy Crush and Instagram that amounts to a senseless mess that fill the screen with indecipherable nonsense for a third of the running time. This is present immediately in the credits, which are absurdly fast for absolutely no reason, and the faux app just feels cheap and stupid. The kids obsess over this app and you're forced to watch them post on it for 45 excruciating minutes.

There are a couple of recognizable faces in the movie, primarily Chloe Sevigny (American Horror Story), who I know for a fact can do SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS. You also get a brief appearance from Taryn Manning (Orange is the New Black), and Natasha Lyonne (Orange is the New Black), who are all fine actors, but they just have nothing to do in this movie. One thing that I will give credit to this movie for, however, is the huge number of female characters that star here. This is such an unfortunately rare thing in horror, and I don't want to discourage a female-fronted film ever. With that said though, the characters and actors in this movie are just wasted on such a weird mess of a film.

#Horror was the writing/directorial debut of actress Tara Subkoff (The Cell, The Notorious Betty Page), and I say again I love seeing women making horror movies, but this is just a mess from all fronts. Maybe it's just a case of first-time jitters, or something to that effect, but the movie just doesn't work and tries to pull of some bizarre style elements that feel awkward. There's a certain vibe of "Hello fellow kids" throughout this whole movie, that you usually see with adults trying to related directly to teenagers without gathering much context.

Now, there are a couple of genuinely interesting and effective shots in the movie, but that's kind of like saying that an album with one good song on it is a good album. The pieces do not make a cohesive whole, and the movie falls really flat. The shots that work do give me hope for the future, but that could also be due to cinematographer Learan Kahanov, but I'm not familiar enough with their work to really say for sure.

Yes, bullying is real, yes kids are horrible monsters to each other, regardless of all that, this movie really sucks. Give it a hard pass.

I'll make it short, since this "movie" is not even worth too many words - I already wasted too much time watching it anyway. Whoever thought this to be a atmospheric horror flick must be totally new to the genre, the best thing about this movie is the snowy landscape.

It strengthens my point of view that it's never a good start to be the writer, director and producer of a movie. Seems like everyone else was telling those people that their movie is actually crap and they should work a bit more on the script - I for sure would have strongly recommended it. I am glad beyond words that this writer- director-producer jack-of-all-trades spared us an acting "career".

There is absolutely nothing special about this movie. And the really cheap photoshopped inserts of some "internet-content" is just ... lame.

Avoid it You can.

A misguided, poorly directed film. The main message fails horribly, as it ignores obvious mental illness and bullying in a failed, shoehorned attempt to jab at social media and technology. The only redeeming features of this film are Timothy Hutton's forced overacting, and the unsettling amount of throbbing egg shots.

All hail the egg.

Seriously one of the worst movies ever. Complete screen writing and directorial crap. Battlefield Earth and Roadhouse are SAG Award winners in comparison. Apparently based on a true story, the screenplay focuses for far too long on trying to establish the characters as spoiled, self-indulgent social media obsessed sociopaths without ever offering viewers a single reason to either empathize or despise any of them. If the attempt was to portray the main characters as the real horror of humanity, and their mean-girl personalities as delivering its own type of psychological carnage - the attempt was laughable. Seriously, if you've read this review, you've already wasted too much time and energy on this film.

This film suffers from what can only be described as a surplus of ideas that don't really add to the final point very well. That the movie is a horror film is a given. The title makes it clear. The heavy atmosphere, the music, the ridiculous animations.. They all point to a horror film of some sort.

But unfortunately the rest of the substance in the film is something of a confusing mess.

I won't pick on the actors, because frankly I think they did an admirable job for such young actresses playing a part in such a disturbing movie. Granted, their acting wasn't flawless, it was actually rather forced. But after repeating some of their lines to myself and considering better ways to deliver them, I've decided that the forced acting is mostly the fault of the writing. The emotional context behind the words keeps shifting at a breakneck pace, and it's really hard to pull off on screen without feeling choppy.

So I can forgive the girls for that.

However, the lack of focus in this film is its biggest problem. I couldn't decide what idea the director was trying to get at in any given scene. We had cathartic confessions where the girls bond, only to be ripped apart again by petty elementary school level dialogue. We had the dysfunctional parents deeply neglecting their children, and then going haywire, the girls themselves suffering from all sorts of deeply personal problems, bullying, the concept of being "too rich to be happy", a local legend of a crazy slasher is inserted, and the idea that a person's imperfections make them good slasher bait (a popular idea in hundreds of slasher films, appropriate even for 12 year old girls it seems).

And the only thing tying it all together is the notion that being addicted to social media will cause you to disassociate yourself from reality while filming it all live for your followers to watch with interest. But honestly even that idea seems to fade away after a little while. It doesn't feel like it's as important a thing as it should be.

If you were confused at all by the last paragraphs then you understand what I'm trying to say. So many ideas, so jumbled.

The only justification for this level of thematic bombardment must be to confuse the viewer so that they don't guess what's really happening. But honestly, anyone who really watches the movie with even a little bit of attention can see what's really going on. The ending was not a surprise.

All in all I'm not sure what hook this movie is using to lure people to watch it. I think the fact that it features 12 year old girls and horror IS the hook. It's sort of morally decadent to submit girls that young to many of the things in this film.

I feel a little disgusting for having watched it, can't say I enjoyed it much. But it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen by any means. If the director can clear up the mess of ideas a little, I feel like a second shot is in order. Maybe another movie along the same vein. Maybe a sequel. Ha. Maybe not.