Psychedelic Dance Horror Shouldn't be Boring

Rating: 3/10 (16 September 2019)

I love Enter the Void, and generally respect Noe for taking chances and getting out there, but this was mostly bad. Dance sequences are well done. I wondered if the dialogue was improvised, because some of it seemed really forced and unnatural. It turns out I was correct and much of it was improvised. Was expecting to be able to identify a protagonist, but even that was hard to do for sure. The film's depiction of what lsd does to people and how they'd react in a scenario like this is way off and there's just so much behavior in it that doesn't really makes sense or stays unexplained. It never feels scary or horrific or terrifying, just confusing as to what the characters' motivations are at any given moment.
The cinematography is well done, but some of the creative choices visually seemed amateurish and unnecessary-a very long shot done upside down for no apparent reason, for example. Whereas Enter the Void-same DP-had profoundly unique and original shots that made sense in the context of the story AND were visually spectacular. Not having more interesting psychedelic visuals in the context of a plot wherein everyone is on acid seems like a lot of missed opportunities and may have made it more interesting since there's not a lot of plot to go on. Music is solid, but it seems they could've used it better to reinforce the action of the scene, while in this case it's basically just playing along. Could've gone with some deeper and weirder tunes that'd be more indicative of the time and place, while these are all fairly mainstream and well known songs.
Overall, it's pretty boring and lacking in plot. There's no real reason to care about any characters except for maybe the kid. Seems like it could've benefitted from a real script and just more effort put in in every department.