Thursday, 30 July 2020

Follow Me (2020) - Movie Review



A bad movie is one thing, but a movie that makes me feel bad that it actually engaged me at all is something else. Yeah, cutting straight to the point with this one, as it’s been a while since I’ve had thoroughly bad news to report back with in a review.

So, this is a horror flick about a group of obnoxious twenty-somethings who go to a special escape room where they start to wonder if this truly is just fun and games. In the process of typing out that last sentence, I went through such a potent amount of déjà vu that I briefly went back in time to when I watched Escape Room. Tried to warn past-me to appreciate the outside world as much as possible in light of current events, but hey, introverts gonna introvert.

But it goes beyond just that level of familiarity; hell, it goes beyond the entire ‘torture porn’ canon that this thing keeps cribbing from. This thing is so bleeding derivative of other, better media that it stops even feeling like its own product and starts to echo its social media ribbings in a likely-unintentional way: Following the trends without any added thought behind it, because it’s apparently what followers want.

Ignoring the rather placid beginnings, to the point where the entire first act feels pointless already, the closest this has to its own idea is poking at social media influencers, the connection they have to their audiences, and the attempts to blur real life and streamed life. Shame that the lead somehow has less personality than either Paul brother, as does every other ‘character’ who have basically two modes: Obnoxious and scared. No development, no interesting interplay between them, not even a strong-enough connection to the whole social media aspect; they’re just… there.

Between the puzzle-solving of Saw (and by extension Escape Room), the ARG trappings of Nerve and David Fincher’s The Game, and an ending that is basically ripped right out of an episode of Futurama of all bloody places, this thing gets really damn annoying in just how transparently unoriginal it is, and that goes for the narrative itself as well. It basically goes from a plainly-dodgy escape room set-up right into Hostel by way of clipping.’s The Show, only the presentation is so awkward that it basically telegraphs what is actually going on. Not necessarily the ending, but the process of getting there nonetheless. It doesn’t help that said ending is one that banks on caring about the characters involved to be effective, something the Rothian characterisation makes practically impossible.

And yet, I still found my heart rate spiking at the expected moments. The pacing is relatively brisk, there’s at least some effort made to put us in the shoes of the main character (which is admittedly part of the telegraphing problem, but I digress), and as much as I joke about Keegan Allen’s presence in the lead, watching him get progressively more and more freaked out at what’s going on has the desired effect. But honestly, that just annoys me even more. My instincts pretty much bought this hook, line, and sinker, while my head stayed in a perpetual state of unimpressed for the entire running time.

Under normal circumstances, I’d show a touch of mercy because it did indeed get to me in a small way. But considering this is the first horror film I’ve watched on the big screen since the cinemas re-opened, chances are just about anything would’ve dug into my skin after all this time. Nothing else here, from the acting to the irritating presentation to the mish-mash of influences, adds up to something genuinely entertaining or even tolerable to sit through.

Between writer/director Will Wernick’s previous film literally being called Escape Room (not the one I reviewed before), co-star Holland Roden slated to be in Escape Room 2 (not a sequel to Wernick’s film, but of the film I reviewed before… confused yet?), and The Grudge from earlier this year dipping into adjacent horror trends from two decades ago, it seems like 00’s nostalgia has officially landed. Let’s just hope that what comes next is less of a headache than this shit, because as bad as things are right now, there are still some aspects of the past that aren’t worth reliving.

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