The opening 10 minutes are a pretty decent recreation of Scream's opening. A victim is being stalked and attacked by a masked killer. But this victim, after successfully evading the killer, suddenly does something extremely stupid that no person in their right mind would do. He grabs a baseball bat and leaves his secure hidout to confront a guy with giant hunting knife.
This is emblematic for the rest of the movie. Most characters act stupidly all the time. While there is some tension here and there during the first half, and some pretty good camera work, the story is poorly written and the tension falls apart immediately after the first confrontation.
The movie wants to be Scream with Covid. But it makes several mistakes.
In Scream, the motive of the killer wasn't instantly known, but the theme was. Horror movies. And how to survive one (or more likely not). Here, the killers don't have a theme. We just get an exposition dump just before the final fight. Until then, it's just random black clad killer stabbing people.
Scream gave us multiple suspects. Here, there are none except for one obvious red herring.
Finally, the protagonist:
Scream's Sidney Prescott was immensely likeable. So much so, that she carried 5 movies. Usually it's the killers (Jason, Freddy etc) who carry a horror franchise, but Neve Campbell absolutely made the series her own.
The acting is mostly bad as well. Slasher movies need charismatic and relatable leads, who we - the audience - want to survive. Here we get a spoiled, selfish brat. Her friend, the black girl, is not only written as a smarter character (because of course she is, it's the 2020s) who is more knowledgible and emotionally mature and doesn't play with people's emotions, but the actress is also far better and more charistmatic. So we're stuck with a main character (the audience avatar) who's an unlikeable jerk and makes stupid decisions. Way to not keep your audience invested.
The overacting by the killers is laughable, and the movie becomes a farce once they tie a character down and subject them to a terrible exposition dump about their motive. At least that's something the audience can relate to at that point. Except we're not forced to listen, we can fast forward to the final kill, which ends up being marred by the worst cgi since She Hulk.
They couldn't even afford a measly fire suit for that stunt and had to use an some after effects overlay.
Way to give the middle finger to whatever part of the audience stuck around until the end. That's like a restaurant throwing you a stale candy bar on the table for dessert.
The covid theme feels tacked on and is more distracting than anything else. It doesn't mesh with the subject of the film.
This is emblematic for the rest of the movie. Most characters act stupidly all the time. While there is some tension here and there during the first half, and some pretty good camera work, the story is poorly written and the tension falls apart immediately after the first confrontation.
The movie wants to be Scream with Covid. But it makes several mistakes.
In Scream, the motive of the killer wasn't instantly known, but the theme was. Horror movies. And how to survive one (or more likely not). Here, the killers don't have a theme. We just get an exposition dump just before the final fight. Until then, it's just random black clad killer stabbing people.
Scream gave us multiple suspects. Here, there are none except for one obvious red herring.
Finally, the protagonist:
Scream's Sidney Prescott was immensely likeable. So much so, that she carried 5 movies. Usually it's the killers (Jason, Freddy etc) who carry a horror franchise, but Neve Campbell absolutely made the series her own.
The acting is mostly bad as well. Slasher movies need charismatic and relatable leads, who we - the audience - want to survive. Here we get a spoiled, selfish brat. Her friend, the black girl, is not only written as a smarter character (because of course she is, it's the 2020s) who is more knowledgible and emotionally mature and doesn't play with people's emotions, but the actress is also far better and more charistmatic. So we're stuck with a main character (the audience avatar) who's an unlikeable jerk and makes stupid decisions. Way to not keep your audience invested.
The overacting by the killers is laughable, and the movie becomes a farce once they tie a character down and subject them to a terrible exposition dump about their motive. At least that's something the audience can relate to at that point. Except we're not forced to listen, we can fast forward to the final kill, which ends up being marred by the worst cgi since She Hulk.
They couldn't even afford a measly fire suit for that stunt and had to use an some after effects overlay.
Way to give the middle finger to whatever part of the audience stuck around until the end. That's like a restaurant throwing you a stale candy bar on the table for dessert.
The covid theme feels tacked on and is more distracting than anything else. It doesn't mesh with the subject of the film.