Don't Look Away

Thought it was really stupid, in fact I feel like the filmmakers were hoping i was stupider than the movie so that i would not notice how much it made no sense. The only thing the filmmakers got going for them is that somehow, they got this released in a movie theatre. That's impressive, its attempts to mimic a giallo-styled slasher film of the 70s and 80s just made it more garbage as I was expecting something cool and unique, but the artist went over my head. Although based on the bad ADR it could have been this film did not have the money needed to be good. I give it credit that the "Slasher" was creepy...at first but not creepy enough to justify the badness of it all.

I was enjoying this until the last ten minutes or so when it seemed that the script ended too soon and someone had to jump in and finish the movie at whatever cost to what went on before...

I was not a big fan of It Follows, didn't really care for the entire concept of the movie once the initial theme was established, so while I can agree that this is reminiscent of that film, Don't Look Away also has its own lore and its own strange engulfing vibe that kept going all through the film until the unfortunate ending.

I could think of several ways this could have ended, but the ending that was settled on really felt totally out of place with the rest of the film.

There is an actor in the film named Abu Dukuly who should not quit his day job. The acting from most of the main cast is fine, but this guy's acting is soooooo bad, it takes away from the performance of everyone else in each scene he's in. His lines are rushed through and without emotion. When he does show emotion, it's cringe-worthy.

This bad acting from one person aside, there are some creative scenes in the film, but they all happen within the first 20 minutes or so. The visuals of the mannequin are pretty great, as it can look frightening with the right lighting and shadows.

The story isn't terribly strong, and no one shows a lot of remorse for the murders that are happening. Friends are brutally killed several feet away from certain characters, and the emotion and reaction from them is almost not existent. I had a hard time liking any character as a result.

I guess it's because the reviewers are too young or something, but this premise goes back quite a while. At it's peak of internet fame, the most popular version is SCP-173, which one person sort of seemed to sort of remember, and another seemed to know from one of the video games based off of the SCP database. The writer posted it on 4chan back in 2006 and then on the official SCP website once it was established in 2008. Statue that can move freely when no one is looking and kills people via broken neck if not watched or contained.

However, there was also an episode of Dr. Who called Blink, series 3, episode 10. That aired in 2007, so it could have possibly predated 173 in concept, since episodes usually take a while to get made. Most people would think of this as the Weeping Angels episode where those statues that you usually find in grave yards do the same thing, except when they touch you, you get sent into the distant past instead of being killed, which could be a boon or a curse depending on how attached to modern days you are and how well you could adjust to the living in the past. Still, it made for a nice creepy episode given the look of the weeping angels.

There are likely even older predecessors of which I am currently unaware. It frequently happens when I'm reading up on old sci-fi and horror by people like Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Jules Verne, etc. That I find people have drawn from them even further up the line than anyone realizes or acknowledges. People don't realize they are watching something based on something that's based on something else, that's based on something else...who knows how far back.

It's not like It Follows, because that creature keeps coming no matter what and no one but the victim can see it, so nothing like this.

It's laughable to even say that it TRIES to be like The Shining and I think people are only saying that because The Shining was on television in the background at a certain point in the movie, but the mannequin seems to have powers more akin to Rubber, the 2010 movie about the sentient tire with psychic abilities.

If I hadn't been crafting with messy materials, I probably would have turned the movie off around the 30 minute mark, but I swear that it's as if they actually filmed the movie scenes in order from beginning to end and learned as they went along. The filming got better along the way, the acting, the sound...

By the end I felt like it redeemed itself as a campy B-horror, so I give it a 6. A little better than the average movie in the pile of disappointing horror movies I've been digging through for the last 10 years.

I honestly don't know how this movie got approved to be produced. From the horrible writing to the atrocious acting... This is by far the worst movie ever. I'm watching it on Prime, but from my understanding this was released in theaters.... There is no way I'd pay to watch this. It's a Sunday in the summer, no football so I decided to watch a horror movie. This is not a horror movie, I think anybody could've made a better plot & gotten better actors. Please don't waste your time with this movie.... It's a waste of existence, if I can rate this movie it would be a negative star... After watching this I believe I can become an writer & sell my movie...