Rating: D
Dir: Franck Khalfoun
Star: Camille Rowe, Stasa Stanic, Jeremy Scippio, J. John Bieler
It has got to the point where ‘A Shudder Original’ has become more a threat than a promise. I was hoping for much more from Khalfoun, who gave us the brilliant Maniac remake. However, here he is hogtied by a terrible script, more interested in providing left-wing political messaging than entertainment – the very definition of “woke”. At one point, the heroine actually says, “My whole life has been about pleasing men.” Seems like a you problem, honey. But it sums up the tone of this whole misbegotten endeavour. Though to be fair, watching this a week before the Presidential election didn’t help: I reached my annual quota of smug bullshit months ago.
The missteps begin almost immediately, when we’re introduced to pharmaceutical executive Alice (Rowe), who is about to leave a convention, being clumsily reminded by her husband at home that she has a fertility appointment. Seconds later, we discover she’s having an affair with co-worker John (Scippio). “What a great way to get our empathy!” said no audience, ever. On the way home, they pull into a gas-station only to find it’s the bullseye for a sniper (Stanic), who has already killed the sole overnight employee. He’s operating from a nearby billboard (top) which, in one of the film’s few interesting moments, can be read in two, diametrically opposite ways. Paul is quickly dispatched leaving Alice alone, except for a walkie-talkie through which she communicates with the active shooter.
Turns out, he has a laundry list of grudges, with his lines apparently created by a Twitter-scraping bot, or possibly an AI told to parody right-wing talk radio. I certainly can’t believe it took four human writers to come up with this garbage. It’s exactly the kind of scenario where the killer doesn’t need a reason, and all the efforts to give him one backfire completely. Compare and contrast the more effective Downrange, and you’ll see what I mean. It may have had its flaws, going too far into enigmatic. It’s still preferable to having the killer self-identify as “The right-wing nut, the conspiracy theorist, stop the lie, storm the Capitol, election fraud, domestic terrorist, anti-vaxxer, anti-this, anti-that.” You’ll be forgiven for mentally tuning out mid-sentence.
Things only get worse thereafter. For naturally, the shooter idiotically ends up leaving his position of strength, and wandering around inside the gas station. This is so he can drop vague hints as to the specific nature of his motivation (which seems curiously focused on Alice), but more importantly, allows the heroine to battle him hand-to-hand. Do not expect either of these aspects to approach remotely satisfying, and my reaction when the end credits rolled was “That’s it? Really?” Of all the reasons I watch genre movies, getting political lectures from Frenchmen is pretty far down the list. This has pissed away all of Khalfoun’s goodwill, and a good chunk of that for producer Alexandre Aja too. As for Shudder? I will not be subscribing.