Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Superhost is the worst movie of all time

Superhost. “This episode is the most special episode yet! Be sure to like and subscribe as we hunt down your favorite host, Teddy. First impressions of this place are not good. There is blood EVERYWHERE and I found a dead body in the basement. Absolutely zero stars.” That shit is pretty funny. This movie though, uuuugggghhhhh. Not my cup of tea. Though it has a 92% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomato. So what do I know? Judge for yourself if you have access to Shudder. 

Gist is that a couple of influencers with a travel vlog do what they do whilst stressing about their dwindling follower count. They decide to start creating content focused around their "superhost," Rebecca, who is out of her fucking mind and really wants a great review. Everything as far as plot goes hinges on them having shit cell service. But they have good enough WiFi to upload videos. Okay.

Directed by one Brandon Christensen who also did the movies Z and Still/Born. The movie stars Sara Canning (Claire) and Osric Chau (Teddy) as the sloggers, and Gracie Gillam as the psycho Rebecca. Gillam, who also goes by Gracie Phipps it appears, looks and carries herself like a girl I boned back in the day. The girl I knew wasn't nearly as insane, to my knowledge. But this fucked with me for some reason. 

Anyway, the always lovely and talented Barbara Crampton shows up in the flick too for what I assume was a half-day of filming. MVP is sort of a toss-up between Chau and Gillam who are both more than serviceable if over-the-top.   

Acting is solid all around. The crazy chick is believably insane, the female lead is a major buzzkill, and the Asian guy is a huge bitch. They are all super good in these roles.   

Glad I don’t have to care a lot about my number of followers is all I’ve got to say. Looks way stressful and fucking terrible, being an influencer who depends on that shit. Legit sad. 

I had a cousin who was a YouTube influencer who was like this, and I thought it was pretty pathetic. But what do I know with my sub-300 Instagram followers? I like using YouTube and blogging and posting photos and such, obviously, but I do it more for me and my friends and don’t have to worry about making a living at it, with all my high-level marketable skills and all (I kid [sort of]). 

Also, this lady, not marriage material. Yeah, she cute, but fucking with someone else’s livelihood for followers and likes is low as fuck. Now the host did end up being crazy, but that is beside the point. The chick he wants to marry, we see, has a track record of this. I just can’t get over how little I respect this dude’s character. Think about what you want out of life and a partner, dipshit. He can barely even go downstairs to check out strange noises and shit. This dude needs to learn how to be a fucking man. Of course she doesn’t really say yes by the way. As you can guess, the rest of their video is bound to be stellar.   

A lot of bad horror movie decisions. Idiot logic like going back to the house instead of the car because the killer might be waiting on them even though the house is monitored by surveillance cameras and locked via codes she provides. They had so many opportunities to run when they were able-bodied, but the dude, as been established, is a bitch. Also, there is a security system they could have set off to get the police there but they didn’t. I guess if the killer had remote access or something, but, again, no cell reception. They waited too long though and she was able to turn it off with a fob. Could have hit the panic button, but these two don’t want to live. I feel like this is on-brand for them though and they get got because of it. Fucking noobs.  

Monday, October 4, 2021

It Comes At Night is the greatest movie of all time

It Comes At Night. "You can't trust anyone but family." Well, that was about the bleakest fucking movie I've ever seen. Did not like watching during a pandemic. Basically, everything that happens in the movie is for nothing. Humans are the worst. Can't trust each other especially when it comes down to survival between families. Even the fucking dog dies. A solid movie, great even, but holy fuck, man. Never watching this shit again. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: It Comes at Night makes lethally effective use of its bare-bones trappings while proving once again that what's left unseen can be just as horrifying as anything on the screen. Read critic reviews  

Written and directed by one Trey Edward Shults, who must be disturbed as shit. My man has some fucking talent. Barebones, effective as shit storytelling. The film is about a family (mom, dad, adultish son) hiding in a forest after society has collapsed following the outbreak of a highly contagious, deadly disease. Things are pretty shitty but they are surviving when a dude suddenly tries to break in. Turns out he has a wife and little one. He desperate as shit while the other one is just trying to keep his family safe. 

Only two people I recognize, neither by name. They are Riley Keough (Elvis's granddaughter who was in Mad Max: Fury Road) and this Joel Edgerton (mostly think of him as Hugo from Smokin' Aces). Only other people that are in it enough to have lines are Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo (she was in True Detective: Season 3), and Kelvin Harrison Jr. The fams are Edgerton, Ejogo, and Harrison, then the others are a clan. 

I think what I really don't like about the way this movie made me feel, without giving too much away, I 100% would have done exactly what either of the dads does, especially Edgerton. But no one was right, nor wrong. Just fucked.  

While the movie has a high critical rating, audiences hated it. Probably because it was such a bummer, no doubt. I mean, we are watching people living in a world filled with fear, sickness, fear of sickness, pain, distrust, and desperation. Sort of like IRL but also with way more death and isolation. It's fucking terrifying and prophetic--the film came out in 2017, before the shit. 

Hard to pick an MVP, the performances and film are so great. Leaning toward the director, Shults, or Harrison. I'm gonna default to the director though since this was a nearly perfect unwatchable movie. Check it out, sure, but it is not a pleasant watch for a movie with no gore and no truly evil characters.