REVIEW:
Here’s a movie that wants to be the next Get Out, and actually comes somewhat close. What we have here is a cool, smart movie filled with twists. In fact, really it’s just one twist (like Get Out,) but tons and tons of Easter Eggs or hidden clues dispersed throughout, to tip you off on what’s really happening. Only they don’t tip you off (they don’t make it obvious,) and instead the clues work much more on follow-up watches, when you already know the truth and now see all the ways that the movie got clever about it.
Even without the twist or clues, however, this is a very interesting film. First off, it’s about a “mystery,” island. Our characters literally go to an island with a bunch of strangers for an undisclosed amount of time (let’s say, a long weekend,) with the sole intention being to party it up and have a lot of fun. The colors are vibrant. The music is fantastic. And we take on the fish-out-of-water perspective of two women (Frida and Jess,) who happily go along, expecting to have the time of their lives.
The islsnd belongs to tech mogul, Slater King, who surrounds himself with a frat pack of guys and one woman who sort of oversees the place. This group is played by familiar faces of former movie stars, including Christian slater, Hayley Joel Osment, and for the female manger, Geena Davis. This character being a woman is significant for a number of reasons, including her representing a sort of surrogate motherly figure to the guys, as well as being there to kind of usher in the women and let them know that everything on this island is safe and okay, otherwise why would another woman be going along with it?
Of course, that is far from the truth. The trailers reveal that Frida’s friend, Jess, disappears and there’s the idea of doubt put into characters’ heads that maybe Jess never existed at all. It feels like something out of a Hitchcock classic, (North By Northwest with the way a room in a mansion changes to become something else or The Last Vanishes with the doubt about a characters existence.) And it works. So does the reveal. This is the rare movie that’s better on a second viewing, when you’re able to really take it all in, then in a first. Either way though, it’s a pretty great flick. Easily the most darkly twisted movie since Promising Young Woman.