The only slasher movie Disney ever made.
This is a movie I just had to watch. I read the original was a recut version to make it PG-13. It's very short and many scenes, plot points, and all bloody stuff is removed from the movie. So it feels kinda like a glorified trailer for a Disney movie. This is the version I could find online. I suggest people who love movies to watch it to see how a studio can butcher a movie. Because there is a very fun movie in here that was just cut one time too many. Ironically the villain in the movie uses scissors to kill her victims.
A bunch of young people play a video game that influences real life. It's a very clever and cool idea with fast pacing. There is a blonde love interest who is a 20 something actress who already had her face done. So it's just weird to see her twitch in her role. Probably some girlfriend of the director? The actors overall were charismatic and there are some big names here. It's just one of those "filmed in 30 days" movies. So all scenes look like a homemade documentary. It's lazy cinematography and looks overly cheap and rushed. You film, move on, film, move on. No one has time to really act well or do their best, but you do get a movie out of it. Then the PG-13 cut makes it even worse. There are scenes that just appear. We see Frankie Muniz die in the game. Then in the next scene the protagonist couple are chased by the carriage. It's quite clear there should have been some scene to connect the 2 scenes. It's jarring and weird. You also have miscoloring between scenes in the same location. In the former mentioned location you have bright daylight then in the next scene everything is grey and dark. Then it switches back again. It's not even just a small change. It's like going from day to nearly night and it just switches back and forth. You could say the magic did it? It's for sure a huge post-production error anyhow and shouldn't be acceptable.
There are also points and plots not revealed. The first scene is 3 people dying. We only see one person die though and it was never clear the other 2 people even died until it's mentioned later in the movie. Later the protagonist explains that they died the same way in the game. He also found a bunch of crime scene photos of the real bodies. Of course he wouldn't know how they died in the game or if they even died in the game. I assume there was a scene cut out explaining this point? Maybe he got the info via a phone call with the victim before he died? The plot itself seems super cool, so I do think editing ruined this no the script. Then of course he seemingly hacked into an FBI database or something? It's not clear. He just has access to these crime photos only FBI would have. Again, lack of scene or bad plot? How are we supposed to watch this and then accept that he just magically gains crucial info that saves their lives?
There is also a really cool plot with the police constantly chasing the protagonists and finding dead bodies where they have been. Very cool stuff! But the cops never appear again and the plot is never resolved. We just know the protagonists are being chased by cops and they run away. But as their hot friend dies in a house we never really see what happens to her body. She seemingly died? We know she was bleeding, but did they drop her off at a hospital or call the cops? Just showing the cops find the body would be such a cool scene. But it's just all cut out.
There is also some extremely lame "cool teen" dialogue here. It's ridiculously bad for Jimmi Simpson. Unacceptable. The rest of the characters are sorta realistic. The hot girl, Sophia Bush, is really great when she whispers. At times she tries to debate and shout and it makes no sense and is bad acting. She just suddenly gets angry at the group for not listening to her, but I assume some scenes have been cut because in the film she just starts shouting out of nowhere. No one has even said anything to her. There are a lot of such fleeting scenes that kinda make sense if you consider that they are a reaction to something we didn't see. Like when we see Frankie Muniz die in the video game and assume he is gone, but then suddenly he appears out of nowhere. Yet we never see how he returned or what will happen to him now. Assumingly he helped down the blonde plastic girl and saved her life. But we just see her having escaped her chains and have to connect the dots ourselves. It just jumps from scene to scene like this. The video store actor is also horrible. Again this "cool teen" stuff that is fake as hell. Seemingly in the unrated version there are also 2 more main characters. But I don't see how they would even fit them into just 15 minutes more screen time to make it a 100 minute long R-rated movie.
I don't know how good the R rated version is. I don't assume it's great or anything. But I can say that if this movie had better editing where more plot scenes were included it would have become a cult horror movie that everyone would still be talking about. All it would take is an extra week in the editing room and then the editor being allowed to make it longer than 85 minutes. There is a cult movie here somewhere. It could have made $150m and got a ton of sequels with better editing. But obviously Disney would never accept an R-rated slasher movie. Someone else needs to remake it. This feels like Scream or IKWYDLS. A movie that is easy to watch and produces a billion sequels. But Disney killed it. Probably smart as they don't want to make horror movies.
This is a movie I just had to watch. I read the original was a recut version to make it PG-13. It's very short and many scenes, plot points, and all bloody stuff is removed from the movie. So it feels kinda like a glorified trailer for a Disney movie. This is the version I could find online. I suggest people who love movies to watch it to see how a studio can butcher a movie. Because there is a very fun movie in here that was just cut one time too many. Ironically the villain in the movie uses scissors to kill her victims.
A bunch of young people play a video game that influences real life. It's a very clever and cool idea with fast pacing. There is a blonde love interest who is a 20 something actress who already had her face done. So it's just weird to see her twitch in her role. Probably some girlfriend of the director? The actors overall were charismatic and there are some big names here. It's just one of those "filmed in 30 days" movies. So all scenes look like a homemade documentary. It's lazy cinematography and looks overly cheap and rushed. You film, move on, film, move on. No one has time to really act well or do their best, but you do get a movie out of it. Then the PG-13 cut makes it even worse. There are scenes that just appear. We see Frankie Muniz die in the game. Then in the next scene the protagonist couple are chased by the carriage. It's quite clear there should have been some scene to connect the 2 scenes. It's jarring and weird. You also have miscoloring between scenes in the same location. In the former mentioned location you have bright daylight then in the next scene everything is grey and dark. Then it switches back again. It's not even just a small change. It's like going from day to nearly night and it just switches back and forth. You could say the magic did it? It's for sure a huge post-production error anyhow and shouldn't be acceptable.
There are also points and plots not revealed. The first scene is 3 people dying. We only see one person die though and it was never clear the other 2 people even died until it's mentioned later in the movie. Later the protagonist explains that they died the same way in the game. He also found a bunch of crime scene photos of the real bodies. Of course he wouldn't know how they died in the game or if they even died in the game. I assume there was a scene cut out explaining this point? Maybe he got the info via a phone call with the victim before he died? The plot itself seems super cool, so I do think editing ruined this no the script. Then of course he seemingly hacked into an FBI database or something? It's not clear. He just has access to these crime photos only FBI would have. Again, lack of scene or bad plot? How are we supposed to watch this and then accept that he just magically gains crucial info that saves their lives?
There is also a really cool plot with the police constantly chasing the protagonists and finding dead bodies where they have been. Very cool stuff! But the cops never appear again and the plot is never resolved. We just know the protagonists are being chased by cops and they run away. But as their hot friend dies in a house we never really see what happens to her body. She seemingly died? We know she was bleeding, but did they drop her off at a hospital or call the cops? Just showing the cops find the body would be such a cool scene. But it's just all cut out.
There is also some extremely lame "cool teen" dialogue here. It's ridiculously bad for Jimmi Simpson. Unacceptable. The rest of the characters are sorta realistic. The hot girl, Sophia Bush, is really great when she whispers. At times she tries to debate and shout and it makes no sense and is bad acting. She just suddenly gets angry at the group for not listening to her, but I assume some scenes have been cut because in the film she just starts shouting out of nowhere. No one has even said anything to her. There are a lot of such fleeting scenes that kinda make sense if you consider that they are a reaction to something we didn't see. Like when we see Frankie Muniz die in the video game and assume he is gone, but then suddenly he appears out of nowhere. Yet we never see how he returned or what will happen to him now. Assumingly he helped down the blonde plastic girl and saved her life. But we just see her having escaped her chains and have to connect the dots ourselves. It just jumps from scene to scene like this. The video store actor is also horrible. Again this "cool teen" stuff that is fake as hell. Seemingly in the unrated version there are also 2 more main characters. But I don't see how they would even fit them into just 15 minutes more screen time to make it a 100 minute long R-rated movie.
I don't know how good the R rated version is. I don't assume it's great or anything. But I can say that if this movie had better editing where more plot scenes were included it would have become a cult horror movie that everyone would still be talking about. All it would take is an extra week in the editing room and then the editor being allowed to make it longer than 85 minutes. There is a cult movie here somewhere. It could have made $150m and got a ton of sequels with better editing. But obviously Disney would never accept an R-rated slasher movie. Someone else needs to remake it. This feels like Scream or IKWYDLS. A movie that is easy to watch and produces a billion sequels. But Disney killed it. Probably smart as they don't want to make horror movies.