Film Review: Don't Look Up

Here’s the lowdown on how this works: I review a film; throughout I will give scores (+2, -6, etc.) based on what the film does well and not-so-well. In the end, the movie’s total score is what it gets out of ten. Simple enough, yeah? Since this is my first time, I’ll keep it short.

Don’t Look Up (2009)

Let’s get down to business, shall we? There’s a reason this was direct-to-DVD. Most of the film is terrible. My best friend found it at a Redbox for crying out loud! Not a good way to get your film noticed; McDonald’s isn’t a place horror movie freaks go to find their latest fix (-1). Add to this that the film is a remake. But wait, there’s more! It’s actually a remake of a film that’s about remaking a film! How clever! Not really (-1). For those that are wondering, here’s the synopsis, courtesy of IMDB: “Evil spirits released from old celluloid causes a film crew to slowly go insane while in production on a new project.”

If you watch the trailer, you’ll notice it hypes the original director, Hideo Nakata, who “created” The Ring and Dark Water. Neither of those movies is really any good. Also, Nakata did not create The Ring. That honor goes to Koji Suzuki, who wrote the trilogy (get up and go read something!). For not giving credit where credit is due (-1). Also, Fruit Chain is not an “acclaimed director” in the States. He should be, but he isn’t. Good try, though.

As stated earlier, Fruit Chan (who did the “Dumplings” segment from Three… Extremes) directs, and Eli Roth stars as a temperamental horror film director (true to life?) who dies in the first two minutes. For these, and yes, I mean director, actor, and his death 2 minutes in, (+2). That character also has a great moustache (+1). To his credit, Eli gives the best performance out of the entire cast, something we can probably thank Quentin Tarantino for (+1). That said, the leads do well for themselves, holding their own amongst almost-standard direct-to-DVD fare. But it's not enough to really pull this film out of the vaults.

One thing that does stick out about this film is the special effects. There’s not a lot of gore, but what bloodshed we do see is just red and creepy enough. Way to go! (+3) Most of this film’s power lies in its atmosphere; it’s more like a ghost story/mystery than it is a traditional horror flick (+2 for subgenre-mashing). Every time I think about this movie I want to say that it’s called Don’t Look Now, but that movie’s awesome; for confusion and not having Donald Sutherland (-1).

Total score: 5/10. It wasn’t all that bad, but it’s not all that good either.