BEFORE: Kelvin Harrison Jr. carries over from "Elvis", and of course now I'm wishing I'd lined things up a little differently, because I'm at another half-century mark, and I think it might have been a little nicer if the big "Elvis" film had fallen here. But I would have needed to watch "Men, Women & Children" a couple months ago to make that happen, so I need to learn to live with the results of the decisions I've made. Look, there are just 50 films left in the year and my chain is set to reach Christmas and the end of another year, so that's all good. I need to remind myself that I saved that movie for a reason - it links several movies that I want to watch in February, and watching that also would have meant that I'd need to still cut THREE movies from my 2023 chain now, instead of two, it's hard enough for me to cut two.
But this means that Movie Year 15 is now 5/6 over, just 50 films to go, and after another 5 I can start in on the horror movies. Last year I watched 4 of the 5 "Purge" movies as the lead-in to Shocktober, and this one kind of feels like it's from somewhere in that same vein.
THE PLOT: After a malicious data back exposes the secrets of the perpetually American town of Salem, chaos decends and four girls must fight to survive, while coping with the hack themselves.
AFTER: Well, I really called this one wrong, because I was expecting another high-school-cheerleaders-with-assassin-skills movie, like "Barely Lethal" or "Domino" or "The Rhythm Section", and it's just not that. Well, it kind of maybe gets there at the end, because there's a lot of killing near the end, but no real explanation for how these four high-school girls got so good at using guns. Well, they're Americans so I guess there's your answer...but is it?
This film kind of marketed itself as "Heathers" meets "The Purge", which implies a certain mix of black comedy and also political commentary, and I'm just not sure if overall the movie really got where it wanted to go - I mean, that's a tough bar to jump over, no? It just feels like the math isn't there, if the storyline wanted to get from "everybody's texts and browser history gets made public" followed by "everybody puts on masks and tries to kill each other". Just maybe there should have been a few more steps in-between, that's all, because one doesn't logically lead right into the other. I can see maybe how some people might commit suicide once their secrets are exposed, or to seek physical revenge on the hacker, but as one character states in this film, whoever looked at a photo of a nearly-nude woman and thought, "I need to go find that person and kill her..."? Unless that woman broke up your marriage with that photo, I'm not really seeing the direct motivation. Blame the hacker, not the hacked.
Somebody also clearly wanted to address a ton of hot-button social issues, not just the proliferation of guns in the U.S., but also social media and its devastating effects on teens, sexting and its devastating effects on relationships, homophobia, transphobia, pornography, hacking and privacy issues, nudity as an art form or exploitation, lynch mobs, and then of course all the normal social situations that American teens might be confronted with in their daily school lives and also their free time. It's a lot, and without a clear focus to it all, I'm led to believe that maybe they should have narrowed things down a bit in the name of making some kind of coherent point. Just saying. Unless the goal was just to show a lot of ultra-violence and touch briefly on a few social issues, in which case, mission accomplished.
Anyway, it's a bit derivative because "South Park" did an episode in 2016 called "Fort Collins", in which an entire town in Colorado got hacked, and everyone's browser history got exposed. And since "South Park" is known for spoofing other things, if you should find out that your main plotline was already featured in an episode, maybe you should scrap the whole thing and try again, because man, it's been done. But to be fair, this was released in 2018, which is when the #MeToo movement was really hitting its stride, remember that? Still, I have to figure this movie didn't really pitch itself as being ABOUT that, because it ended up as one of the biggest box office bombs of that year, grossing only $2.5 million against a budget of $7 million.
I think the title was part of the problem - it's a clever title, sure, but not appropriate because the action is confined to one town called Salem (state unspecified) and it's not even CLOSE to being nation-wide, so maybe that title should have been saved for another movie, something more in line with "The Purge" or something about a secret organization of assassins, not just high-school kids and parents with guns.
The IMDB does not list where exactly this was filmed - but I swear I recognize the high school from that covered walkway between buildings. Wasn't that also seen in "Licorice Pizza"? If I'm right then it's the Portola High School in Tarzana, CA. But also there may be a fake high school somewhere that gets used JUST for interior shots, I mean, that would make sense, right, because so many films are set in high schools? Somewhere a high school shut down and was about to be demolished and then somebody in the film industry said, "No, no, WAIT, don't destroy it, we'll buy it and shoot a bunch of movies there, we'll just have to decorate it a bit differently for each movie - or not, because who really notices?" (EDIT: Nope, I'm wrong, the high school walkway seen in "Licorice Pizza" had a sloped roof, and this film shows a walkway with a flat roof. My bad. "Assassination Nation" was apparently filmed in New Orleans.)
Well, the best thing that I can say is that now this film is off my list, cleared off my DVR and I'll never have to watch it again or even think about it again, not until the end of the year wrap-up at least. And I'm sure as a society we're going to work out all our lingering issues regarding social media and transphobia, and future high-schoolers should have no hang-ups whatsoever. JK.
Also starring Odessa Young (last seen in "The Professor"), Abra, Suki Waterhouse (last seen in "Charlie Says"), Hari Nef, Colman Domingo (last seen in "Without Remorse"), Danny Ramirez (last seen in "Top Gun: Maverick"), Joel McHale (last seen in "Blended"), Bella Thorne (ditto), Maude Apatow (last seen in "The Bubble"), Cody Christian (last seen in "Surrogates"), Bill Skarsgard (last seen in "Villains"), Cullen Moss (last seen in "The Highwaymen"), Anika Noni Rose (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Jeff Pope (last seen in "Supercon"), Noah Galvin (last seen in "Booksmart"), Stacie Davis (last seen in "Daddy's Home"), Lukas Gage (last seen in "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse"), Susan Misner (last seen in "Two Weeks"), Kathryn Erbe (last heard in "The Vanishing City"), Joe Chrest (Last seen in "Jeff, Who Lives at Home"), JD Evermore (ditto), Lance E. Nichols (ditto), Caden Swain, Andrene Ward-Hammond (last seen in "Project Power"), Lucy Faust (last seen in "Breaking News in Yuba County"), Elizabeth Newcomer (ditto), Destiny Reed, Lorelei Gilbert, Jennifer Morrison (last seen in "Warrior"), Leticia Jimenez, Daniel Williams-Lopez, Silas Cooper (last seen in "Columbiana"), Anthony Marble (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Geraldine Singer (last seen in "Blue Bayou"), T.C. Carter, with a cameo from Wolfgang Novogratz (!!!) (last seen in "Sierra Burgess Is a Loser").
RATING: 4 out of 10 naked baby photos
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