It's not funny, and it's not scary... So?

Rating: 4/10 (16 August 2012)

I was quite looking forward to seeing this one. I stayed away from any reviews or synopsises in order to experience the film as ignorant as possible ( I'd recommend this for all). All I did know was that Joss Wheden was behind it and it did something interested with a genre that's had several leg transplant surgeries already.
Based on that small amount of info, I admit I was expecting a good deal of lampooning and perhaps something I hadn't seen before. I got this - to a degree. But it's nothing near as satisfying as it should be. This is principally because it's trying to do a lot with playing to genre conventions, while also tearing them apart, is a lot to do in the running time. While I understand why they had to include the set up, due to its pace it feels severally undeveloped and ultimately takes you away from the more interesting 'twist' stuff the film has going for it. This is evidenced in the final 20 minutes, which I found both significantly more fun and developed that the first hour. Had the focus been here throughout it could have explored an interesting premise without skirting around plot and character devices. But hey, maybe next time eh?
An enjoyable hour and a half, but not the game changer I was hoping for.