The Master Cleanse

Paul has recently been dumped by his fiancée and fired from his job, so when he sees a commercial on TV for a retreat, he thinks this may be the jump-start he needs to turn his life around.

To say much more about the plot is to spoil the story, which is precisely the problem with this movie. Running a scant 70 minutes (with almost 10 full minutes of end credits), there's not time to get to know any of the characters aside from the lead and the story feels overwhelmingly underdeveloped, leaving a great many lingering questions. Frankly, it feels like a student film or a padded short populated by recognizable actors and complete with a pretentious ending. The performances are solid across the board (though everyone but Johnny Galecki and Anna Friel have little to do), there's a nice atmospheric mood in cinematography, music and direction, and the FX aren't bad.

I saw the trailer a few months ago and have been stoked for an offbeat oddity ever since. Unfortunately, the trailer played like an abridged version of the movie, leaving out only the resolution. For what it was, it's an okay movie, but it had the potential to be so much more.

When was the last time I saw Angelica Houston in a project?

It's a lot better than what I was expecting. It's not the best movie but a very interesting one which seem to try hard to stretch a short story into a feature, but it did not have enough meat on it.

When I read the synopsis about a group of people going to a retreat to do an experimental cleansing process which is "more than they realize" I was honestly expecting a horror film, but horror was not one of the genres listed and I thought that's either a mistake and if it's not, it can't be good outside of that genre.

Not sure if I was wrong but, I'm defiantly not completely right. I did like that the visual effects seem to have been done on camera instead of CGI, which made the Sci-fi warmer and realistic.

It was better than what I thought. I think it's biggest mishap was trying to be a feature when it was not.

Use 4 large jars of gunk, throw it up to produce a ridiculous rubber cabbage patch doll which is the embodiment of all your negativity which you need to murder.

Or to put it another way., this film.

No comedy at all.

No horror.

Dire anamatronics. So ridiculous that maybe that's the comedy element.

I kept waiting for something, anything to happen, but no, it didn't. Yawn.

Please, why was the treatment free? What happens if you don't kill your negativity muppet thing? It eats you. Ok. Obvious. Like the plot. Tiny plot hole. The thingy that is the characters negative stuff has no legs. The entire threat is negated by walking away briskly.

Non sensical up-chuck worth walking away from. Honestly it doesn't get better at the end.

This isn't a terrible movie, it's even mildly entertaining. It's well acted and well shot. However, the story never really hits a satisfying arc or finish.

REVIEW - THE CLEANSE

Let's imagine that all the bad, the negative, the little monster we hide inside is actually real.

So this monster lives inside us and is a part of us whether we like it or not and this monster basically makes us who we are and how we interact with people and deal with situations.

What if you could literally take the monster away.

Nice premise for the film but this does get lost in the journey, especially at the end which was disappointing because from the trailer I had great hopes for this silly, go nowhere story with no conclusion only confusion.

Honestly if this is on TV this is your last resort, it's either this or........ And after sitting through this I'd rather be doing the or.

One film I wish was better but it wasn't.

5 out of 10