Directed by:
Babak AnvariScreenplay:
Babak AnvariCinematography:
Kit FraserCast:
Armie Hammer, Zazie Beetz, Dakota Johnson, Brad William Henke, Karl Glusman, Kerry Cahill, Ritchie Montgomery, Jim Klock, Martin Bats Bradford, Creek Wilson (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
Will is a bartender in New Orleans. He has a great job, great friends, and a girlfriend, Carrie, who loves him. He skates across life’s surface, ignoring complications and concentrating on enjoying the moment. One night at the bar, a violent brawl breaks out, which injures one of his regular customers and causes some college kids to leave behind a cell phone in their haste. Will begins receiving disturbing texts and calls from the stranger’s phone. While Will hopes to not get involved, Carrie gets lost down a rabbit hole investigating this strange malevolence. They’ve discovered something unspeakable, and it’s crawling slowly into the light. (Sundance Film Festival)
(more)Reviews (4)
A great respect is due to the director who was able to make quite a thrilling horror movie out of a stupid screenplay. As if there was a pub brawl and putting an end to it gets you pursued by some crazy occultists.
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Babak Anvari is not having a comeback. After the uninteresting Under the Shadow, he made an interesting but ineffective horror film – and the trailer looked decent. A bartender's life is turned upside down after finding a phone with disturbing contents, but this mythology is not developed in any way and feels a bit unnatural. Babak has assembled a surprisingly decent cast for this film: Armie Hammer, Zazie Beetz and Dakota Johnson are decent choices for a horror film, but it needed a more interesting script and more creativity, which unfortunately Babak will never have. There's almost no horror elements here besides the cockroaches. It's not suspenseful, atmospheric, gory or as disturbing as I had originally hoped. Hulu is not Netflix and Babak Anwari will probably never make a good horror movie. 40%.
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The British-American production Wounds is an example of a modern original horror movie that has some elements that may seem unfinished. It may seem like some explanation of the subject matter is missing. However, from my point of view, it is an interesting journey that makes the viewer think and affects their imagination, stamina, and disgust, and it works well. The last scene is breathtakingly filmed.
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A horror film cooked up from batter similar to Hereditary, but not nearly as visually sharp and intense. It has a lot of good exposition, where I felt pleasantly hooked and was almost childishly impatient to see what would happen next. The first hour is magnificent in terms of atmospherics and the portrayal of the main character as a bigger and bigger idiot was great; I have no major complaints. In terms of the script, the last act is unnecessarily spastic and rushed in its attempt to deliver at least some hardcore gore. It could have easily been half an hour longer with more development of the central theme, which quite openly draws on the work of H.P. Lovecraft. However, Iranian filmmaker Babak Anvari is definitely one to watch; perhaps in time he'll turn out to be another Ari Aster.
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