One clever idea

Rating: 5/10 (11 August 2019)

In a time where horror is so poorly executed so frequently, perhaps unparalleled by any other genre for sheer number of replicate movies with all the same beats and all the same scares and all the same characters; this film tries to poke fun at how mundane it's all become. This movie relishes messing with audience expectations and disrupting the casual way we consume such unoriginal content. However, the ideas underpinning the subversion are not as strong as Whedon and company have convinced themselves. There's no weight to this film, it feels cynical just for the sake of being cynical. And while justly pointing out the flaws of the genre, offers no scares, no horror in return. It's just a parody with a big budget and perhaps would have worked much better as a short film.