Take Back the Night

Captures the good times of drinking and pills from the days of misspent youth really well. Glad my time was before social media ruined everything. Interesting story built around the "is this really happening" genre while offering some commentary on social issues, it goes to some dark place and gets fairly intense. My only criticism, as seen here, would be the current trend of directors changing the shot angle every 5 seconds, too much imagery to process.

Right, well I had not heard about this 2021 horror movie titled "Take Back the Night" before now, late in 2022, as I stumbled upon it by sheer luck. Seeing it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

Writers Gia Elliot and Emma Fitzpatrick might have had something interesting in means of concept, but the transition from script to screen didn't make for an impressive movie. Sure, there were elements of the storyline that were interesting, but the overall impression of "Take Back the Night" is that of a dumpster fire. The storyline is cluttered, erratic and all over the place. So director Gia Elliot wasn't exactly bringing the ship safely to harbor.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough, just a shame that the actresses and actors virtually had nothing solid to work with in terms of script, character gallery and dialogue.

The storyline was not appealing to me, and it was a difficult movie to suffer through. And it didn't help much that the character gallery had a lot of very dislikable characters in it. Personally I am not keen on vloggers and people constantly filming themselves for putting online, but when the main character in "Take Back the Night" kept filming herself while she was being attacked, I was good and ready to turn off the movie.

For a horror movie, then "Take Back the Night" was a swing and a miss. Well, unless you consider such an ill-constructed storyline to be horror, then you're in luck.

My rating of "Take Back the Night" lands on a very generous two out of ten stars. This is not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this so you don't have to.

I remember seeing Emma Fitzpatrick about 10 years ago in The Collector and thinking what a good looking actress we'll be seeing a lot more of her (I don't recall her being quite so well endowed! Lol). Disappointingly few appearances since then. She does a great job in this role and the plot just keeps you guessing all the way. Could well become a cult classic.

Ok so, here we go. I tried reading and looking at some of the other reviews and they're just all way off-key I'm sorry not sorry to say. One talks about the lead protagonist having "severe" mental issues, no she didn't! Her MOM had the severe mental issues! They touch base briefly about her having a stint at a psych hospital but in an interview she elaborates on this as she checked herself in due to stress of losing her mom, even though they also made clear her mom tried to kill her when she was a teenager by attempting to down her. So yeah, MOM had the severe mental disorders, not Jane.

Now that that's all cleared up, on to why this movie only gets 3 stars. I read in a other review that this was an all female written, directed, and even acted movie. There is a "guy" in it if you will, but you never see who he is, she just randomly meets him and bangs him in the bathroom at her art show party and of course he happens to be married. There's a lot and I mean A LOT of female/feminist bias all through out this entire movie. What a shocker right? Written, directed, and a full cast of females? Kinda wouldn't expect anything less am I right?

So I'm going along and the movies not so bad. It touches on real life issues and scenarios that real female victims of assault deal with after the fact. The Evidence Kit that they have to endure, people not believing them, and even the lesbian cop, oh excuse me, "detective" as she likes to point out and correct everyone in the movie through the ENTIRE movie. Yeah that doesn't get old or anything, doesn't believe her.

So, towards the end, the "monster" which I must say is the absolute, worst, garbage piece of you know what CGI monster I've EVER seen in my entire life thus far. It's not even scary looking! In fact, it looks like nothing! It's just this black mass with a mouth, normal flat not scary crooked teeth and three glowing eyes? And the eyes aren't even set, they just kinda blob and float around the empty black mass that's supposed to be this things face I'm guessing? I dunno but it's awful! So just lackluster and lazy and unoriginal and uncreative that it's kinda funny that the protagonist is this local semi famous artist/influencer and yet whoever designed this monster and I use the word designed VERY loosely, clearly didn't and doesn't have a single creative bone in their body.

So, she's running from the "monster" at the end and she's hiding. Well she finally hides in a barrel full of water, don't ask cause I dunno, they're on the rooftop of the building her flat is in, and yeah movies, and she's ready to finally make a sneak attack on this thing, oh, btw she found these old books talking about and describing the "monster" that was after her and it also told her a way to kill it so she had this knife/dagger made that would supposedly be able to kill the monster. Anywho she jumps out of the water filled barrel and raises her little knife/dagger up over her head with both hands, which completely makes her open and vulnerable to attack and guess what happens? That's right she gets attacked before she can do anything, the monster grabs her by her throat and she drops her weapon and the monster proceeds to shove her head under water, just like what her mom did to her when she was a teenager, and holds her there until we are lead to believe she's dead.

Cut screen and now the monster is dragging her lifeless body across the ground as she sputters up some water and magically comes back to life. Also amazingly enough, she somehow managed to retrieve her knife/dagger that she dropped behind her head when the monster grabbed her throat, all while unconscious I might add, AND hold onto it! That's right! She magically had the knife/dagger back in her hand! Only to have the monster step on her wrist and make her drop it again! Are you freaking serious? So not only did you destroy the continuity of what was going on at that point, you destroyed it and then had it lead to nothing?!? At this point I was just done and well in all honesty headed here to write this review.

So, unless you're a hardcore left wing lala-liberal feminist, I'd skip this one cause, it's not even scary and I think it's beyond ignorant what they claim as "horror" movies these days, this being one of those examples.

The reviews downplaying this movie must be the same people who blame the victim.

The sound, camera, and lighting quality are amateur.

The acting is decent.

The dialogue and plot are actually superb.

Every day victims are belittled, ignored, and accused on lying about being assaulted or raped. This film demonstrates the emotional toll one takes and the hurdles they must overcome just to report an assault, let alone going through the court system.

This artsy cultural commentary deserves higher praise and should be used to spread awareness rather than being fodder for those in the privileged and ignorant position to deny.