I definitely wanted Summer to be more in the vein of the Wet, Hot, American variety. lol Just... with a killer! I only say disappointed because i had higher expectations from the team behind it. I liked it well enough, but i definitely judge these movies the harshest based off their twists and subsequent reveals. I thought Summer and Heart Eyes were lackluster in these regards. When the first reveal in Heart Eyes is
a guy you don't even know
my jaw literally dropped because it broke the boundary of caring at all when the reveal happens by negating it almost completely. CRAZY. Summer was better but still ill-conceived in my head. I just don't buy the victim mentality when we all know how that would actually be handled in the real world and would backfire completely. I thought Clown and something like Thanksgiving were better simply because the motivations and payoff held up under the same level of scrutiny. Clown basically
has the same twist as Hot Fuzz
and i was HERE. FOR. IT. And I just really liked everything about Thanksgiving, really. It was the perfect ape of Scream, and that's how it was advertised and that's how the original preview was depicted in Grindhouse, so the expectations met reality there.
I LIKED In a Violent Nature but i can't help but feel like it was missing some things. I'm not going to say it's boring, cause i wasn't bored. I'm someone who liked Skinamarink ffs, i have an attention span. lol For one, the editing was rough. It really needed someone to go over the entire movie with a fine-tooth comb. If the concept is to literally be tracking-shot after tracking-shot we should stick to that medium of execution and absolutely never break that rule. The first time it's broken is for a dizzying dolly shot with awfully told exposition and i just rolled my eyes into the back of my skull. The movie does SUCH A GOOD JOB with the "show-don't-tell" rule and it comes to a GRINDING halt there. Not to mention the off-screen kills. Why? That's literally the one thing that a movie with this concept shouldn't do and it makes even LESS sense when you get to the Yoga and Police kills. We're following this guy. We should see all the kills. Bad move. To me, that comes down to budget. They couldn't stick the kills cause they didn't have the budget for it. They couldn't get the writing because they didn't have the budget for the kills to know how far they could go. They couldn't stick the camera behind him because they didn't have the writing because they didn't have the budget, etc. You see where I'm going. This is a HIGH concept that DESPERATELY needed studio backing and did. not. get it. I also abhor the muted ending in the truck. Takes all the good-will of the previous hour and leaves us walking out of the theater with a wet fart. Not to mention, his mask was dumb as hell and made less sense than bag-head-jason. Like i said, someone needed to smooth this entire concept over and make the simpler aspects work better for the concept and NOT overthink it. I can really solidify that by saying one thing: imagine this movie with a studio backing under the Friday the 13th banner title where the entire thing is a tracking shot behind Jason with almost no cuts like the film 1917. It would be historical, Cory. And that's why i'm disappointed, cause this is a case of 'coulda/shoulda/woulda' to the extreme and the missed opportunities and shortcuts they took absolutely measure up.