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I watched this, not being that interested in the plot, but mainly because I am a Jo Joyner fan from Shakespeare and Hathaway. That said, by the end of the first episode, despite finding Diane Kruger pretty insufferable (which she remains throughout), the absurd use of characters talking directly to the camera, and the highly annoying overuse of Jess's fantasies, I was hooked.

Through the first four episodes, it was very engrossing. But around late episode 4 and into 5, some signs start to appear where you're like "aw man, I hope this isn't going where I think this is going" and sure enough, as one character in particular becomes more and more comic-book villain-like, it goes there. It all comes to a terrible, terrible end where the writers decide to wrap everything up in the neatest of bows, erasing ALL the interesting nuances and grey areas that kept the series interesting and painting everything with a black-and-white brush that clearly separates the victims from the evildoers. Ugh.

And it pains me to say because most of the actors in this movie I have really enjoyed, and I'm sure, will enjoy, in many other projects. Even knowing actors in this industry are going through a really rough time right now, I cannot figure out how they ended up in this, at BEST, Saturday night SyFy channel, "The Asylum Presents"-level movie. (Edit: I've just learned those are the EXACT type of movies these directors have done previously so no wonder.)

The acting is fine enough. But the writing-holy hell, so many missed opportunities to have some unique kills or do something interesting with the "disease" the dogs had beyond having one...climb a rope. That's not even the worst part though. It's, you guessed it, the use of AI.

This movie has the worst special effects I've seen in 15 years or so. And it's because they decided to use what looks like the free version of an iPhone AI app to generate a good 99 percent of what the main focus of this movie is...the dogs. From the very beginning, the AI generated dogs take you out of it, killing all tension of the scene. And with that, we're already seeing how AI will help kill jobs and creativity. No visual effects artists were employed here. Some terrible prompt-created mess which was just pasted in throughout the movie. And no doubt the tech will get better in the future but think about how much energy must've been used to create the slop in this movie, then think about how much it will take when it's Marvel-level ready. It's the beginning of the end folks.

Anyway, I'm giving this two stars because it did keep me engaged, but just because I could not stop taking in how truly, truly awful it was.

This movie starts off great. It has this retro/vintage/nostalgic grain to it that instantly sucked me in. Then right after that, the movie sets the hook very effectively so you're immediately engaged. We're introduced to some characters and context, so far, so good. Shortly after, our assumed protagonist is introduced to the real conflict and it's right here, where I think the movie is really gonna pick up, that the movie comes to a dead stop. After this moment, we get a long flashback that shows the moments leading up the initial kidnapping and it is so...so...so boring. The other negative review here isn't well-written but it is accurate. These events are very slow and very uninteresting to the point where I just couldn't get through them. My interest in the rest of the movie completely disappeared and I turned it off. If you can sit through it, congratulations I guess, but all I got out of it was a blown opportunity. Two stars for the visual style.