Stranger

The funny thing about this flick is what caused me to totally give up on it. Was it the wooden acting? No. How about the terrible sound design/soundtrack? Nope. Or the casting where they made an obvious fail in using a dude about the same age as the lead actor as "the creepy old guy."

No, it was the ridiculously amateur, intelligence insulting background radio dialog/announcing during two separate car trips. On the way to the store and back for some pasta that they forgot (3 boxes???), the radio in the SUV plays in the background and provides what seems like expository information. But it was so friggin amateur! The announcer is talking about a trail that the community had voted to fund re-opening after a girl had fallen down while jogging. The mayor is mentioned, but not his or her name like you'd hear on any local radio station. No. Just "the mayor" says this...the "opposition leader" says that...Then they get to the weather. When reading the weekly forecast do they use the standard "The high temp will be 72 and the low temp will be 65"? No, they say "The maximum will be 72 and the minimum will be 65 as we watch the skies for you in this already hot summer..." NOBODY reads a weather forecast like that in the United States. It's THE HIGH WILL BE or THE LOW WILL BE.

But seriously that really isn't the only reason this movie is terrible, of course. All of those things I mentioned in my opening paragraph are true. The acting is wooden, the casting is a fail, the sound design is garbage, the cinematography is puzzlingly disjointed and in many places not even relevant to what's happening in the story (of which there is not much of one).

Take note of the overhead drone footage of the forest as they drive into the mountains headed to the cabin. Hmmm....where have we seen this before? Ominous music playing as we see the tops of pine trees (going in multiple directions?!) and an aerial view of a car with a couple inside. All that was missing was Danny and his imaginary friend. Just a terrible job of trying to ape Kubrick for absolutely no reason. Then there are the lingering camera shots when the character has left the frame as the camera then slowly changes focus to the background in an ominous manner while spooky music plays where......there's nobody whatsoever present! What is the point of this?

This is 3rd year film school quality at best. Do not waste your money or time on this garbage. The literal only good thing I can say about it is that the lead actress is pretty attractive. That's it.

3/10.

Oh my god, the script is unbelievably terrible. First off, the plot. I couldn't believe how this was produced, or who would think of sinking money into this moronic, flimsy film. In no way was this film suspenseful and halfway through the film I wanted the main characters to die. Anyone making the film could have added a little bit of humour, but instead tried to develop the characters of the couple, which was executed poorly. The acting was dismal, if anyone thought of hiring any four of the cast just watch this film and reassess your foggy decision.

What made me laugh more than anything was the stranger. He just shows up and can barely speak English. The viewer doesn't have any idea why he's there or stalking the couple... he just shows up out of the blue and starts saying "take a sit" "chop chop". I thought to myself, did Tommy have anything to do with this movie? Is this film a way to launder money?

Regardless, I feel slightly dumber for watching this. I think eating a pile of lead chips would have been a better choice.

You are about to go on a wild ride.

A ride consisting of some of the most wooden acting you will ever witness.

A ride that will reveal one of the worst directors of all time.

A ride with a script so bad, it had to be written spontaneously by a monkey with a typewriter.

This movie is about nothing. It's yet another vapid blended couple in a cabin who do what people in a cabin do. They drink. They smoke weed (although the woman has no clue how to toke) they discus the number of eggs to cook. And they do it for an hour and 18 minutes.

There are also ancillary characters who have nothing to do with forwarding the plot.

And then there's the protagonist. The movie's almost done by the time he's inttroduced.

How did this movie get made?

Oh child, whoever wrote this film should not call themselves a screenwriter. Unclear how this movie even got made. The dialogue is so painfully bad. If they thanked each other one more time or talked about the ding dang pasta they were making one more time - terrible. The acting is actually not bad, considering what they had to work with, but truly - so much of the dialogue was unnecessary and just plain bad.

When the dude smoked a joint in the movie, I only wished he could have passed it through the television set because it could have made the film a little more tolerable.

Truly, the worst dialogue in any film of all-time.

Just no.

The actors are so bad in this movie that they can't even convincingly act everyday activities such as cooking or brushing their teeth. It's like they don't really want to be in the film. It's embarrassing.

It's really utterly pointless and awkward to watch. There's no story, no emotional engagement and no point at all to any of it.

There is a baddie that is presented towards the end of the film, and introduces some more pointless activities which does give our actors an opportunity to demonstrate they acting range.

I can't quite understand how such a movie would ever get made, perhaps as an example to be used in movie school on how not to act, write and direct.