Hello all,
With quite a few options ahead of me this week in terms of movies to watch, I found myself at a bit of a loss at what to watch first. We got the 5th wave done and over with (thank christ), so the question is what was next? Well, since I worked today, I literally saw the first new movie that was playing right after, and that turned out to be The Boy. So with one January horror film under my belt, how was the second going to hold up? Let’s find out together shall we?
Plot Summary - Greta (Lauren Cohan) is an american woman who has accepted a job in England as a nanny to the Heelshire family and their son Brahms. When she arrives however, she finds Brahms is a porcelain doll that the family believes is alive. Skeptical at first, when she’s left alone to care for him, she starts to believe that the doll may truly be alive.
Pros - At 1h 38m there is a very clear sense of timing and pacing that never really feels rushed, as you can clearly tell when the three acts begin and end. The second act is where the film really starts to pick up, as the characters back story and the situation unfolding in front of her actually does lead her to believe that the doll is alive, and it’s really bizarre to watch in kind of a fascinating way. Third act does get off to a bit of a shaky start, and without spoiling it, basically a new character is introduced and given kind of a brief amount of development time right before kicking into the end of the film. I will say though, the third act twist I admittedly didn’t see coming, but it was actually pretty awesome and basically turned the whole movie around for me. They also sequel bait in a way which I actually thought was kind of neatly ominous and actually left me wanting to see what they want to do with a potential sequel.
Cons - That being said, the twist does actually bring up a huge amount of questions, some good, some bad, and also one kind of big hanging problem over the whole story. Again without spoiling it, it sort of makes you look back over the film, and while there are some really kind of cool and creepy questions left to ask, there’s again the few questions that make you question the logic the logic of the film and admittedly kind of bring down the whole thing quite a bit. It also doesn’t help that it’s a PG rated horror film. The first third will leave you bored as there only really one kind of creepy unexpected moment, at least for me anyways. I really wish they would’ve tried for a 14A rating (Pg - 13 for the states), as it would’ve allowed them more of an opportunity to maybe play with that twist ending a little more.
Final Score - 6/10
But, In a first for this blog, I will be issuing it the brand new…..
Lower Score Seal of Approval!
Look, it’s a flawed film yes, but this is one of those rare cases in where to me the flaws, while still there, sort of end up contributing in a way to the overall feel of the film. This will probably end up being this year’s Hitman: Agent 47 for me, and I’m actually okay with that. I can honestly recommend this film based solely on how this film kind of weirdly works. I will say, that the seal of approval does NOT grant it immunity from the year end disappointing list. If I see more disappointing films than this, it might be not be on there, but we’ll find out at the end of the year.
Tomorrow will most likely be Thirteen Hours. The movie not how long the day is going to be, hopefully.
Until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.
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