Bator

God i really miss the bouncy, quirky, rough around the edges editing style of the 2000s

Daniel goldhaber’s most disjointed and on-the-nose writing. I really was drawn to the idea of remaking this cult classic horror movie and making it something unique. I feel like we could all expect that this would be a commentary on violence on internet and how the attention economy has shaped it and all of us, viewers, and correlating that to the time when the original faces of death released. This assumption of mine was also mostly based on Goldhaber’s previous work and just looking at the modern media network today. And i was interested in seeing that idea play out. I’m not completely dissatisfied with the final product, it just feels so first drafty and underdeveloped. The main commentary of the movie is not only shown by taking place in this cartoonishly absurd twisted reality where everyone is obsessed with watching gore and is happily showing it to their co-workers, it’s also literally spelled out to the viewer word by word. Like deadass the killer might as well have turned to camera and said “you guys im doing this because i love tiktok likes and you love watching violence because your brain is fried from scrolling so much and modern hollywood and the internet is so creatively bankrupt hahaha lol i love killing and views on the internet!!!”. This is not even far from what was actually said in the movie. The movie will also have characters that acted completely regular and human-like throughout the duration of the film, act like cartoon villains at some points, and get ready to yell at screen for a couple a moments because these people are so dumb sometimes, very obviously just trying to push the plot forward. Which is also probably my second biggest gripe with the movie. Goldhaber’s character writing was so smart since Cam, there were no usual dumb horror movie decisions that would have you screaming at the top of your lungs at a dumb bitch that just whimsically walked into a death trap. Also what is Goldhaber’s deal with replicating internet UI like it’s from the windows 95 era? Brother stop I really liked the music and cinematography, like in all of his previous films, the 80s inspired progressive electronic soundtrack is like solid gold to my ears. My absolute favorite part of the movie though, Barbie ferreira’s incredible performance. Disregarding the juvenile writing, her portraying this character was enchanting to watch, the star she is. Need her in everything. Charli xcx, was not giving particularly anything in this one. Kind of took me out of the movie to be honest.