Love Hurts

This movie is on Prime as Most Horrible Things. It was strange. Not what I expected from the description. Not even 100% sure how I feel about it. If you're looking for a time killer or something you can watch with one eye while doing something else this is your movie.

The acting is meh and I still don't understand one scene but I don't care enough to watch it again. Instead of twists and turns it has curves. Couple of good scenes and what would be a good twist ending if they didn't telegraph it about 5 minutes before.

I hate how long they make you make your review. Said all I have to say and still need more cha.

This is a very curious movie. It's meant to be a sinister horror/thriller, with an eccentric who invites a group of random persons for a dinner party in his mansion, under the pretense that they will be paid 10.000 dollar if they will experience an "emotional breakthrough". Then, in the course of the evening, he starts provoking them, playing with their minds and revealing some of their hidden personal secrets. This causes some of them to snap and totally lose control; as a result eventually blood flows, and worse.

This may sound interesting, and is does have potential, but the execution is really bad. The pace is way too slow, the photography is lackluster, and especially the acting is below every par. Only the host (Sean Sprawling) and his butler (Simon Phillips) do a good job, but the actors playing the guests are all terrible. The script is very talkative, and the whole movie is very low on action.

Biggest let-down is the lack of any comprehensible or relatable motive for the host (or for his commissioner, as a twist at the end of the movie reveals) for their actions. The interrogation by the two police-detectives doesn't really help in getting answers, they are so awkward and amateurish that the result is hardly surprising.

In fact, my only positive feeling concerns Sean Sprawling: as the gender-fluid androgynous host his (their) attitude, gestures and dialogues are almost theatrically choreographed, and lend him (them) a definite, larger than life charisma. But that alone wasn't enough to save this disappointing project.

It starts out at a murder scene, but it is dark, so we cannot tell what the police are investigating. It then switches to a party scene, where the guests are invited to this Valentine's Day dinner, and each will get $10,000 if they make a 'breakthrough'. It switches back and forth between the party and the police asking questions about the murders. Simple to say, the 'butler' assures the police he/they have friends in high places. The characters are not likeable, and in many ways it is boring. As the police probe, the background story has more and more tension among the guests. So one is following two different threads. The police cannot figure out a motive, which is the stumbling block, as those who orchestrated everything also seem to have every angle figured out. Certainly not worth paying to see in a theater.

Within minutes I disliked all the characters, & as the film progressed, they just got worse.

I don't know if they were all meant to be unlikeable, I assumed that you were meant to be at least enthused about any of them, but it didn't happen.

Six people go to a meal with an over the top Micheal Jackson style host (also unlikeable), who offers them money to do dumb things.

I was surprised I managed to last to the halfway point before giving up. There didn't seem to be any story as such, just a series of 'events' happening.

Oh, & they pretty much spoiled the so called story, by not showing it chronological order.

It's watchable ish at best if there's nothing better to be doing & you've got something else to be doing, like a crossword.

The film has a lot of flaws, including questionable acting and poor direction (at times), but there is something very compelling about it overall. The plot we've seen before in several horror films, but there is an interesting twist in this one and a back story that actually works well. Yes, it is stupid at times and absolutely absurd at others; characters do things that don't make sense and the dialogue is often eye-rollingly cheesy, but it is entertaining and manages to hold viewer interest throughout. That is more of an accomplishment than many horror films can deliver. I think most people who are looking for this kind of film will find it amusing.