After the overwhelming success of my penultimate movie review, and the rabbit hole I went down that ultimately led to an audience with the director of the movie himself, I couldn’t refuse my wife when she asked me if we could go to the cinema again. However, I had one condition: that we would only go to see a low-budget cheap horror movie that I could come back and write about. She said she wouldn’t have it any other way herself.

Of course, it’s evident that she chose poorly but I didn’t realize that until much later. When she showed me the google card for the movie, I took a quick glance at the name, thumbnail and cast and incorrectly assumed that it was a good match. I had completely forgotten that a game by the same name existed. I think I even noticed that it said PlayStation studios but was too busy to realize what it meant. In my defense, I was just too busy to look the movie up or process the information I had already laid eyes on, despite having already noticed that it was directed by David Sandberg who’d also directed Annabelle: Creation and the Shazam movies. Somehow, I also didn’t notice Michael Cimino in the cast either otherwise that would have definitely rung a bell.

I did briefly mention to my sister that we were planning to go watch this and she immediately told me that it’s based on the game and that I was at risk of spoiling the game for myself. But then she watched the trailer with me and said, “I must be confused about something because this doesn’t look like the game at all.” Again, I was too busy to process this information or make anything of it. I did tell my wife later that the movie was probably based on a game but still didn’t realize that being based on a PlayStation game means it’s not a low-budget movie. And somehow, watching the trailer had reinforced my belief that it was a cheap movie. I think I was convinced that it was gonna be ridiculous and was therefore a good candidate.

Enough backstory, let’s attack the movie itself. Five minutes in, I was already cringing at the corny expository dialogue, a lot of which was badly delivered but I can’t quite remember which actors stood out the most in that regard. I could go out on a limb here and blame the less popular ones but if I’m being honest, their delivery was equally bad and that fact holds even for the rest of the film. The starting sequence felt very rushed but considering how much I already hated the little dialogue it had, I can only appreciate that they minimized filler. The prologue was a little weak and felt forced and didn’t really leave a lot to the imagination. The Happy Death Day element was obvious and, early on, we guessed how the rest of the movie would be paced.

That being said, if “never let them know your next move” was a movie, it would be this one. First it’s a slasher. Then there’s possession. Then there’s literally a giant for a second. There’s a witch, there’s exploding humans, friendly fire. Oh wait, it’s sci-fi and there’s zombie-like creatures and a mad scientist. Wait, the creatures are being rendered by one of the characters’ imagination.

You know how people put literally every topping and sauce on their Subway sandwich just cause it’s free? It was kind of like that. Or to quote my wife:

Joey Tribbiani saying: "What's not to like? Custard? Good. Jam? Good. Meat? Gooooood!"

Of course, in a way, you could also appreciate this. I mean, aren’t such movies supposed to be as unexpected as possible. But idk why it felt very hacked together. I could have sworn the script was AI generated. It just felt like a joke and made me lose interest and respect early on.

Some other complaints I have: the music, screaming and other sound effects were extremely loud to the point that it was more irritating than scary. The whole sister thing was poorly explored and felt unnecessary and forced. The character tropes felt lame and under-utilized. The clairvoyant character was unnecessary, unexplained and poorly done. The whole sci-fi element should have simply been left out if they weren’t planning on explaining it.

I must admit, I was a little skeptical about reviewing this movie because I was afraid of coming off as an imbecile and offending the game fans but then I came across a lot of tweets like, “If you forget that it’s based on the game, it was a great movie.” Personally, I was hoping it was the other way around. I remember telling my wife that maybe some of the things we didn’t like about the movie were actually true to the game, but clearly it was equally infuriating, if not more, for the game fans than it was for me.

I think if this had actually been a low-budget movie from an up and coming writer/director, I would have complained less. But not only was the budget and distribution well accounted for, the writers and directors are actually well-known and established with a lot of success to their name. This makes it even more disappointing for me.