Paradise Cove: Cauchemar à Malibu

Bad acting, bad script, bad storyline. Everything that happens is just so unbelievable. The story, their actions, just everything. Give it a miss

This was such a chore to finish. Rather than scrutinize the story, I'll just touch on what I find incomprehensible...

1. THE SQUATTER: Why does everyone in the movie insist that this old hairy homeless hippie woman is somehow "hawt"? The wife is jealous for some dumb reason, the contractors all lust after her, her fellow homeless friends call her "queen", and the husband fantasizes about her and even lets her tug his chub in one scene...

...When realistically, being homeless for as long as she's been, she'd be rocking a 1970s merkin-style, crab infested bush, with yeasty vaginosis smelling like rank vinegar and expired milk, sporting armpit and leg hair that hadn't had a shave in years, with perpetually un-wiped swamp@ss, and the funk of never using makeup, perfumes, or soap to try and mask her moldy musk.

...And just to clarify, this is not a commentary on the actress - at all - I am strictly talking within the context of the story in the film. There would be an ungodly stench that permeated around her like a bubble-- a fart bubble everywhere she went and had been. It is inconceivable that these characters would be collectively lusting for her crust, or the women envious of her dog matted looks, or the denizens of the town be so reverent to her existence.

2. WHERE THE SQUATTER SQUATS: She lives directly under their house. They know this, we know this, every character in the movie knows this. The entire plot/conflict of the movie revolves around the fact that this couple can't seem to rid themselves of this person living under their house... However...

...Right after CATCHING HER burning all of their money on a grill, the movie cuts to the couple knocking on their neighbor's door with the Sheriff asking for her whereabouts. WHAT?! She lives under their house. The husband literally had to push her away when she was burning their cash. The movie even cuts back to her under their house as usual about to murder yet another guy.

...But then, with no further clues as to where on earth she could possibly be, the sheriff departs, and the bewildered couple give up. If only they had thought to look under the house.

3. PERPLEXING SQUAT like the couple's insistence on doing fertility treatments during the 2 weeks of renovations, or insisting on taking on a renovation project during their month of fertility treatments...

...And Bree's ability to murder in broad daylight right under their house to no one's notice, and the conveniently built ventilation duct she uses to get in and out that they literally installed themselves, and the sloppy editing at the end of the movie like the filmmakers were just ready for this clusterchuck to be over already and had the characters fast-travel from one place to the next with no sense of how.

4. THEN DIDDLY SQUAT: no resolution in the end regarding any of the many murders, the sheriff, the uppity neighbors, or where the couple goes on from here, nothing. It just abruptly cuts to credits...

...Oh but wait, there's an after credits scene? (FYI, I explain it in the "Crazy Credits" section if anybody is curious and had missed it).

Yeah this was dumb.

Although it's a complete rip off and of the Keaton thriller it does have a couple redeeming qualities, one being Kristin Straten. Watchable but forgettable.

It's hard to feel invested in a movie where the characters behave in ways that logical humans would not. The husband constantly downplays the wife's concerns, when if anything, they should both be MORE concerned. An unstable woman is squatting below their house and that woman is breaking and entering and claiming the house is hers. That's not a nuisance. That's a BIG PROBLEM and to treat it otherwise is just unrealistic. It's always better in storytelling when the characters do everything a logical person would do and yet STILL find themselves in trouble.

Also, how long has this woman been homeless? There's a point where a person's Botox and face and lip fillers would have worn off. Or am I supposed to believe a homeless woman is buying plastic surgery and aesthetic procedures?

On a positive, it's kind of a throwback to domestic thrillers like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle or Pacific Heights. That far-fetched weirdly uncomfortable scenario.

Silly plot, silly storyline, silly characters, silly dialogue, silly CGI...just downright silly!

Movie highlight: A government employee saying 'peace out' to a client, instead of 'goodbye', like a normal human being in that role would.

Would not recommend.