Newly available on Netflix.
I refuse to give any spoilers. Don’t read about it, don’t look at reviews online, don’t watch the trailers, just watch the movie.
A gallery of superlatives: best, goriest, most creative, funniest, most suspenseful, most involving, most surprising, most Freudian, most pessimistic, most anti-human in the age of the Gaia left, and ultimately most self-satirizing. Each act raises the stakes. We are invited to laugh at the formulaic conventions of the horror genre, watch ourselves as ritualistic voyeurs watching horror movies, and to consider from where this fascination comes. While basking in the delights of one of the all-time blood and guts examples of the genre. Brilliantly done.
All I’ll tell you. Watch it. Then we’ll talk.
And mind — you who already have seen it — don’t be giving things away to demonstrate your cinematic acuity. Give everyone else time to see it and catch up. You’re welcome to comment on this post, of course, just STAY AWAY from spoilers. Fair enough?
Of course, if you have a weak stomach, watch some milder formula of dramatic entertainment. Though, I have to say, this one winds up being more thought provoking than most of the alternatives.
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I pretty much enjoy anything Joss Whedon does, and this was a fine specimen. I loved it, and I’m really not a horror movie fan.
It’s definitely a fun movie. Whedon is an entertaining writer. He created the TV version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which, considerations of sexually dimorphic upper arm strength aside, was a compelling show. And, at the risk of being overdramatic — probably did a fair bit to change the way people write and speak today.
(P.S. I’m not saying it was a change for the better. But he has an amazing talent for coming up with verbal tics and neologisms that other folks want to use and propagate.)