This horror movie has an interesting conceit and a few pretty good moments but is ultimately unsatisfying and probably a little dumb.
SPOILERS
So I like the conceit, whether or not it was tired as of 1998. A woman has left small town Colorado to travel to LA to bring her younger sister back to her home in order to, um, I don’t know, protect her from the evil city of LA or something. And when they return to her small town, everyone seems to be missing. I feel like that is a decent start to a film but is also likely a recipe for disappointment because whatever the explanation is will be less interesting than our imagination. Anyway…
There are some pretty decent moments here, especially in the early going before we are told what is going on. I think the one that really stands out for me is when Rose McGowan’s character is in the bathroom, which Affleck’s character has already searched with her, and the toilet flushes. There are a few other moments like this in the early going where I was thinking “ooh that’s great.” Some moments that really work and belong in a better film.
There are also a few jump scares, some of which feel earned and some of which are absolutely not earned, such as the sting when Liev Schrieber’s character is interrupted from whatever he is doing with the corpse by Affleck’s character.
Oh and there are a few jokes that work, throughout the film. I didn’t note any of them at the time but there are actually a few moments where I laughed out loud. I appreciate a horror movie that isn’t a horror comedy that makes me laugh.
Generally, I wasn’t minding the film, overall prior to O’Toole’s character’s arrival. (There are a couple of decent jokes around that.) Once he shows up I think the problems start to mount for two reasons, one of which is an absolutely massive spoiler.
So, whatever this thing is, it just seems too powerful and a little too capable. I’m not sure why it can see into Affleck’s character’s mind before he’s really encountered it. (Unless I missed something.) That’s hard to buy anyway but it’s especially hard to buy since he hasn’t been possessed yet. And, much like The Ick in the recent Ick, it seems a little bit like whatever this thing is functions according to the needs of the plot, and not whatever “science” is supposed to explain it. I’m not sure how it’s able to do all the different things it does. It feels a little too all-powerful.
And there appear to be some scenes missing, or something. They don’t run through all of the usual stuff with Flyte. And then only a few soldiers die but then they’re all gone. And then army is slow to react and seems to have been so slow that the creature is going to take them out but we never find out.
But the biggest problem, for me, is the climax, which is a big SPOILER.
So the solution is The War of the Worlds only, instead of aliens driving robots, it’s some kind of primordial beast that has somehow only managed to eat a few thousand (or hundred thousand) humans over hundreds of thousands of years. Maybe in the novel it’s not this transparently The War of the Worlds but in the film, it sure is, only it’s intentional not accidental. I’d forgive that in a better film but here I literally said aloud “Oh it’s War of the Worlds.” (Also, if it’s similar to petroleum would it not light on fire?)
And the CGI around the killing of the creature through infecting it is Buffy-level. I don’t know what it would have looked to me at 16 but 25+ years later it looks pretty terrible. Fortunately there’s not much of it – and it’s mixed in with real effects – but it’s still pretty brutal. And then there is the typical twist ending – common to so many horror movies – which doesn’t really make sense both because the film strongly implies it’s been killed but also because the human that is representing it has no resonance, as far as the audience knows, for the people in the bar.
Anyway, there are some good moments here but it’s mostly not great, especially in the second half. I’d say it was a missed opportunity but I think I’d be annoyed by the explanation regardless.
5/10