Tonal mess

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2019)

Nice premise, great start, a good attempt at building a sinister atmosphere, yeah, up to around 40 minutes. Then the movie shifts towards slasher comedy, providing a couple of genuine good laughs here and there, but in the long run, it just kills its own atmosphere. It slowly starts making less sense up to a point when it becomes clear that there is no way this plot can hold up or have a somewhat satisfying resolution.

At around 1 hr mark the movie slows down and really starts to drag. At this point, you're just waiting to be disappointed and forget about it. The ending doesn't make any sense at all. The twist was so lame and predictable I was actually surprised they still went for it and it barely really changed anything.

I guess the ending was supposed to provide social commentary about how community and environment make you what you are, about people's shadows being their dark sides (there are even a couple of creative shots). Even so, this was done in a very simplistic manner and in the end didn't matter much. I mean, I can come up with some ideas on what they were trying to tell, but the movie feels more like the writers cornered themselves and just came up with whatever stuff that first got into their heads.

I enjoyed the first act though, nice music, fewer jump scares. The acting ranged from really good (Elisabeth Moss was amazing) and misdirected/confused (Evan Alex can't act scared at all).

I think I'd still recommend this movie since it had some good scenes sprinkled throughout the movie, some good acting, two or three misplaced but actually funny jokes, even some tension. Well, at least I can surely recommend the first 40-50 minutes, after that you can just stick around and witness the nonsensical ending yourself :)