Max Summary:
A father and his teen daughter attend a pop concert only to realize they’ve entered the center of a dark and sinister event.
FYA Summary:
I’d certainly call the making of this flimsy-plotted movie a dark and sinister event. Aside from being too silly, where every character makes the most boneheaded choices, the movie’s biggest crime is being BORING. Where were the thrills!? The chills!?
Cooper, serial killer and great dad, decides to take his daughter to a Taylor Swift Lady Raven concert, but because someone tipped off the cops that The Butcher was going to be in attendance, the Least Capable Police Force On Earth decided this event, with thousands of vulnerable young people milling about, was the perfect place to stage a manhunt.
Let me describe the first 40 minutes: shots of Cooper anxiously watching cops randomly grab adult men out of the crowd to…casually interrogate them? (Like what are they honestly asking them? “Hello, care to tell us if you dismember people in your time off? No? Okay then, back to the show!”) and lingering shots of Lady Raven singing the most basic-bitch pop music like we actually care about the music:
Rinse and repeat.
Things get so outlandish in the last half of the movie, let’s instead discuss my biggest pet peeve. Cooper would often leave his daughter at their seats so he could go and figure a way out, and as he’s walking around this arena, there are people milling about EVERYWHERE. Exhibit A:
But, like, WHILE Lady Raven is performing. Why are there so many people NOT attending the concert they paid for? Where are they GOING? Certainly not in beer or bathroom lines. This perturbs me.
Familiar Faces:
I was never a Josh Hartnett fan during his teen heartthrob days; he was a non-entity to me, but he does seem to have aged nicely and can play a convincing creeper. Some of his acting choices were…unhinged in a way that kept me guessing if Josh was a bad actor or if his character was a bad at pretending to be normal. (It’s probably the latter, but based on how the rest of the movie went…well, I question.)
Allison Pill as Rachel
Reading Allison’s IMDB is wild. I knew her face but couldn’t place her, and after reading what she’s done I still have no idea where I thought she was from—I could have sworn she was part of 2000s CW teen-show juggernaut somewhere, but alas. HOWEVER, Allison appeared in 2 book-to-film adaptations of some of my childhood favorites: Redwall and a Dear America book (one of the boring ones about Puritans, but still!). I was only 12 when these things came out; that is prime viewing age for this shizz! Where was I?!
Hayley Mills as Dr. Grant
Hayley has the SAME FACE that she did as a teenager in the OG Parent Trap, which I was obsessed with (way better than her other big role, Pollyanna). I was shooketh when I learned she wasn’t a real twin. She has literally nothing to do in this movie, which is just one of its many, many sins.
Saleka Shyamalan as Lady Raven
You are pretty and have a nice voice, Saleka, but in terms of acting ability, you are the purest DEFINITION of a Nepo Baby™. No one can convince me this movie wasn’t just Shyamalan using his Hollywood cache to get his baby girl a career boost.
Shout-out to the girl playing Cooper’s daughter, as she was adorable, and apparently Kid Cudi makes a cameo asking for honeysuckle kombucha and makes eyes at Josh Hartnett.
Couch-Sharing Capability: High
Unless the people you’re sitting with can’t handle your random outbursts of “WHYYYYY” and “STOP BEING SO STUPID!!!!” Then perhaps watch alone.
Recommended Level of Inebriation: $25 Dollars For A Beer?!
Who cares how pricey the drinks are at the arena; you’re gonna wanna get wasted enough to forget this night ever happened.
Use of Your Streaming Subscription: Autoplay
Whoops, you fell asleep and this movie just came on as an autoplay suggestion because you once watched Signs. Unless you are a Josh Hartnett megafan and MUST watch everything he’s ever done (and, look, I’m not gonna judge you for that, out of experience), then accidentally is the only reason you should open your eyes and find yourself watching this movie.
