*NO SPOILERS, only broad general allusions and some commentary*
This movie can get kind of aggravating due the inane machinations of the daughter character, so hearing that (above) dialogue when it happened really let out a much needed laugh from me. With so how very on the nose this guy had been the entire movie in never giving the girl any reason to trust him (yet she does anyway), just hearing the rebellious and gullible dumb dumb being called out for it felt cathartic. Enough so that I even chose to write this review.
--- My GRIPES while watching:
1.) -- Big coincidence that the mom and daughter happen to move in right across the street from a neighbor that is somewhat involved with the same secret club killing people movie plot that the mother ends up investigating. **
And that the she already had an interest in them beforehand (as revealed by the mural of pictures in her closet from their move-in day and that she bugged their home within only minutes of meeting them). **
2.) -- Mr. Smile tells the girl that SHE CAN get close to the club owners because she is NEW and they like her, but also that HE CAN'T because he is NEW so they don't trust him yet.... Okay? So SHE CAN because she is NEW, but HE CAN'T because he is NEW. And this reasoning somehow makes sense to her.
3.) -- The daughter, who is uncooperative and horrible to her mother, loathes her as being paranoid and conspiratorial because of her investigation efforts into these 'influencer deaths' -- even when she is aware that she is actually right -- yet puts her trust in a guy she's only known a few days whose even more paranoid and conspiratorial as he refuses to even give us his name or take off his mask.
4.) -- The daughter attends these secret parties every single night and the mother is never curious about where she is? Nor thinks to follow her even once? I thought them moving was in part to try and keep her from those kinds of influences.
5.) -- GRIPE RETRACTED: As a fellow IMDber*** made me aware, I mistook one person for another. My mistake... but it really wouldn't have hurt the movie to have like one person be a blonde or a redhead or something to help to differentiate everybody.... :)
However I still think that blindfold & mask rendezvous scene is pretty hammy.
6.) -- And the daughter's last act of genius at the end climax makes her my nominee for the 2024 "Darwin Award".
** ADDENDUM: I'm aware that #1 is re-contextualized by surprise reveals toward the end, but I wanted to leave my initial impression as stated since it did have an influence on my overall experience with the film. *** Thank you Farallina78.
OVERALL:
Its ultimately like a Lifetime movie with many of the usual tropes you see in those: Mysterious offscreen deaths, over-stressed mother/wife, rebellious-just-cuz daughter, a nosey neighbor, red herrings, drugged beverages, many people going unconscious (and often), incompetent cops, mystery villain reveal, a climatic rundown of each of the villain's evildoings throughout the film, and the 'in a hurry to end the movie already' ending.
(Only missing are the 'someone wields a kitchen knife', 'the murdered the best friend', 'how about some tea', and 'you should get some rest' tropes).
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UPON RE-WATCH (warning: slight vague SPOILERS from the first 15 minutes)...
....Some convenient coincidences around the neighbor's role in the film just really don't hold together on second watch once you're aware of everything.
....It would've worked better if she wasn't a neighbor at all and didn't draw any interest in them until AFTER seeing the daughter at the club... and then she meets the mom... then she bugs the house... then she talks cryptically on the phone to whomever about how "She'll work out perfectly."
....That would've made the outcomes opportunistic rather than the "boy were we lucky y'all happen to move in where you did, when you did, how you did, and on the day right after an accident happened coincidentally where and how your husband died, and that you'd investigate it for us, and that you had a dumb young hot daughter who would most likely stumble her way into the very seedy club we wanted her to" way it is now.
