Z: vuole giocare

I hadn't even heard about the movie "Z" from writers Brandon Christensen and Colin Minihan before I happened to stumble upon it by random luck. I picked it up, and the movie definitely had a horror sensation to the cover, so of course I needed no persuasion to sit down awn watch this 2019 movie.

While the storyline definitely had good moments, the movie was flawed. It was flawed to the point where it ultimately failed to raise above mediocrity. I mean, the concept of an imaginary friend being real has been used many times before, for sure. But the atmosphere in the movie was so foreboding and brooding that director Brandon Christensen had me expecting something grand when the imaginary friend, Z, was finally revealed...

In came a most atrocious CGI rendering of an abstract humanoid creature. Uhm, okay, what just went wrong there? The CGI was so bad that the movie almost lost me entirely in the curve. It was so atrocious to bear witness to, and the entire atmosphere and dread that was built up, vanishes like darkness before the rising sun.

The acting in the movie was good, just a shame that the movie was sort of restrictive in what they had to work with. I mentioned the storyline being good. And well, it was. But it just felt like the movie didn't really reach its fullest potential. And the ending of the movie was just a bit forced - predictable even. And for a horror movie, then "Z" was frightfully devoid of scary parts. I think the most scary part about the entire movie was actually the massive drawing that the child made on the wall - it was actually downright impressive.

All in all, not a bad movie, but hardly a memorable one either. I am rating "Z" a mediocre five out of ten stars - as the atrocious CGI killed it for me. I sat through the entire movie, as was adequately entertained, but this is hardly a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

Now this review might sound a bit biased for some, I'm genuinely more scared of atmospheric slow-burn horror movies that tend to creep me out and cause goosebumps every now and then, psychological horror works more for me rather than bombastic and annoying jumpscares without substance, now with that said, therein lies the problem.

Z at first glance ticks the right boxes, it reminded me of Babadook, it started to resemble Hereditary which i was ready to embrace it as, but while those comparisons kept upping the ante as they escalated in both tone and their scare factor, Z on the other hand, does nothing despite having a easy to follow plot with one eerie twist that i wish they did more with, since this isn't a spoiler review i wont bother to give any details on that, but it became a make or break situation.

To summarize Z, it had a promising set up, there were genuinely scary moments that made my hair raise, but the last portions alongside no clear direction completely killed the momentum for me.

Final verdict: 6

Had it not been for the promising start and creep factor in some moments, i would've knocked the score by 2 and left it at 4.

I will watch pretty much any horror movie that looks halfway decent, and I have to say, this one did scare me a few times. Yes, there were some silly jump scares, but there were also some Really effective ones, and some parts literally freaking me out, and that very rarely happens. Honestly I can't remember the last time I even got a little bit scared at horror movie, so that's gotta say something right?! Some of the scares were really affective, others not as much, but I thought this one was really pretty damn entertaining. The actors are really good too, especially the mother. I'm not saying it's anything super original, but if you're watching this in one alone in the dark around midnight, you're bound to get a more than a little freaked out in parts, which is what you want in a horror movie right? I guess my point is that I was pleasantly surprised considering the amount of crap that gets put out these days, especially in the Horror genre. This year in particular they have been consistently pretty terrible, so when you find a decent one it makes you want to praise it for actually having some sort of affect on you. It may not be one that will Leave a lasting impression, but I doubt you will be disappointed. For a unheard of movie, with no PR, or word of mouth, it was nice to find it amongst the recent barrage of trash that passes for horror movies these days. Just sit back and enjoy it.

If you're going to go up against The Babadook you'd better make sure every aspect about the film is better and this film falls significantly short in every department.

That's not to say it's a bad film, it's just not as good as it could be. The difference between Z and The Babadook is that throughout the Australian horror we are constantly wondering wether the monster is real, but in Z we are pretty much dealt the full on monster creep early on so the sense of mystery and threat is diluted throughout the rest of the movie.

Story aside what really let this down was the poor quality of the special effects. The house fire in particular was laughably bad. The protracted final confrontation with the beast was a bit long winded and I kind of lost interest.

Not unwatchable but not as good as it could have been. If you haven't seen The Babadook definitely watch it after this.

Good suspence at the beginning However it faded further into the movie It could have been better however I've seen worse