simonwoodwrites
Joined Jan 2006
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Reviews91
simonwoodwrites's rating
I should've expected trouble when the movie started with a pointless jump scare. This movie is a mess. I liked the idea of an evil dead movie in a high rise building but it was built on a foundation of dumb ideas. The earthquake that reveals the book of the dead is stupid. This building was supposed to be full of people and no one called 911 after a serious earthquake that damaged the building. All this carnage takes place and the other tenants didn't notice.
The characters are pretty badly handled. A bunch of neighbor characters are introduced and you think they're going to have some bearing on the story and they don't. They die five minutes later. The family central to the story doesn't deserve its fate, but I didn't care about them. They aren't likeable or interesting particularly. Part of the problem is movie wastes about half an hour on character baggage that doesn't mean or count for anything. Example: The sister and her pregnancy had no impact on the story so why include it.
It's a dry watch. The film is devoid of any energy or fun and just goes through the motions without much style.
This film outdid Alien Romulus for awful callbacks. The iconic Evil Dead lines are so tepidly delivered it's painful.
There is an annoying aspect of this film. The characters do nothing to save anyone, or act too slowly, or isolate themselves from each other. WTF!
The aspect of this film that really p*ssed me off is that the stupid opening and ending. From the start I'm wondering how is the film was going to connect the lakeside incident to the events at the high rise and the big reveal is someone living in the building who didn't notice anything that went on the night before gets possessed and goes to the lake. This has to be the most pointless prologue and epilogue in movie history. It's completely unnecessary. You could remove the opening and ending and it wouldn't be missed.
The shame of it is this could've worked with some care and attention given to the story.
The characters are pretty badly handled. A bunch of neighbor characters are introduced and you think they're going to have some bearing on the story and they don't. They die five minutes later. The family central to the story doesn't deserve its fate, but I didn't care about them. They aren't likeable or interesting particularly. Part of the problem is movie wastes about half an hour on character baggage that doesn't mean or count for anything. Example: The sister and her pregnancy had no impact on the story so why include it.
It's a dry watch. The film is devoid of any energy or fun and just goes through the motions without much style.
This film outdid Alien Romulus for awful callbacks. The iconic Evil Dead lines are so tepidly delivered it's painful.
There is an annoying aspect of this film. The characters do nothing to save anyone, or act too slowly, or isolate themselves from each other. WTF!
The aspect of this film that really p*ssed me off is that the stupid opening and ending. From the start I'm wondering how is the film was going to connect the lakeside incident to the events at the high rise and the big reveal is someone living in the building who didn't notice anything that went on the night before gets possessed and goes to the lake. This has to be the most pointless prologue and epilogue in movie history. It's completely unnecessary. You could remove the opening and ending and it wouldn't be missed.
The shame of it is this could've worked with some care and attention given to the story.
This film started off brightly enough. That opening scene is quite tense and I liked the idea of a psychic therapist, but it all falls apart after that. As others have said, it's all rather generic and a patchwork of things we've seen in other horror movies. The big issue for me was the film never explains itself or sets any rules for the story. How did the therapist get her powers. We don't know what the monster wants. We don't know what it feeds on. We don't know why it feeds. We don't how to kill the creature. Why did the father/husband character commit suicide. The oddest part is the story seems to jump tracks. It becomes about the mother and daughter coming terms with the husband killing himself and never gets to the bottom of why this creature attached itself to the little girl. The story doesn't hang together unfortunately because nothing is fully fleshed out. Characters appear then disappear when they no longer have any impact on the story.
Most puzzling character is the comic relief best friend. I thought that was going to tie back to something as she kind of set everything in motion but she is merely a doofus.
Finally, Dear Horror Filmmakers, please come up with an original scary monster!!!! We have seen the same variation of a slimy, slinky, sometimes black, sometimes not person in a bodysuit time and time again. See this film, Smile, Barbarian, etc...
Most puzzling character is the comic relief best friend. I thought that was going to tie back to something as she kind of set everything in motion but she is merely a doofus.
Finally, Dear Horror Filmmakers, please come up with an original scary monster!!!! We have seen the same variation of a slimy, slinky, sometimes black, sometimes not person in a bodysuit time and time again. See this film, Smile, Barbarian, etc...
Wow, this film is flat out atrocious. I swear the writers and filmmakers didn't know what they were doing for a film to be this bad. It's oddly edited and shot at times. Story logic is where it really falls down. Here are just a few of the baffling things that occur in this film:
* Friends go on a road trip to scatter the ashes of the main character's dead brother...the "bitch" character decides driving is boring and buy tickets on a charter flight. Why have a road trip?
* The main character is afraid to fly which comes out of nowhere and doesn't affect anything.
* The pilot is drunk...but they and the other passengers get on the plane.
* A passenger bumps his head on the headliner of the plane and the plane crashes because of it. WTF! Seriously, people need to talk to pilots about how to handle a crash landing because even without power a plane go out of control.
* The plane crashes in the middle of bayou. They have no radio and no working phones, but the "dick" character has a working phone but doesn't tell anyone.
* Suddenly, the main character is best buds with the drunk pilot...he's a cool guy now for some reason.
* The plane crash survivors have no food or water but one character steals alligator eggs because that tracks.
* The main character gives a "Quint speech" about alligators and how dangerous they are. One problem the alligators have already attacked them and injured and killed some of the survivors. It's so out of place and redundant.
* Drunk pilot Frank becomes an exposition expert on alligators and DEA enforcement whenever the story needs it.
* We're told that alligators run on land at 24mph so they build a raft that floats slowly on the water...because alligators aren't known for being good swimmers or anything.
* The alligators are supposed to be meth fueled but it never plays a part.
* The post credit stinger is dumb because it doesn't fit the timeline or the story.
I could keep going because there is so much lazy, sloppy and bad storytelling here.
The Bayou had the potential to be a fun creature feature if the filmmakers bothered to do hone a decent story. The shame of it is with the idea they had, it wouldn't have been hard to have made a half decent film out of this thing.
* Friends go on a road trip to scatter the ashes of the main character's dead brother...the "bitch" character decides driving is boring and buy tickets on a charter flight. Why have a road trip?
* The main character is afraid to fly which comes out of nowhere and doesn't affect anything.
* The pilot is drunk...but they and the other passengers get on the plane.
* A passenger bumps his head on the headliner of the plane and the plane crashes because of it. WTF! Seriously, people need to talk to pilots about how to handle a crash landing because even without power a plane go out of control.
* The plane crashes in the middle of bayou. They have no radio and no working phones, but the "dick" character has a working phone but doesn't tell anyone.
* Suddenly, the main character is best buds with the drunk pilot...he's a cool guy now for some reason.
* The plane crash survivors have no food or water but one character steals alligator eggs because that tracks.
* The main character gives a "Quint speech" about alligators and how dangerous they are. One problem the alligators have already attacked them and injured and killed some of the survivors. It's so out of place and redundant.
* Drunk pilot Frank becomes an exposition expert on alligators and DEA enforcement whenever the story needs it.
* We're told that alligators run on land at 24mph so they build a raft that floats slowly on the water...because alligators aren't known for being good swimmers or anything.
* The alligators are supposed to be meth fueled but it never plays a part.
* The post credit stinger is dumb because it doesn't fit the timeline or the story.
I could keep going because there is so much lazy, sloppy and bad storytelling here.
The Bayou had the potential to be a fun creature feature if the filmmakers bothered to do hone a decent story. The shame of it is with the idea they had, it wouldn't have been hard to have made a half decent film out of this thing.