It has become one of my favorites. It wasn't close to what it could be. It had an awesome premise and could have been so much more, I agree. But the plot and the feel it gives off is the right kind of creepy.
I agree completely I also found the movie entirely predictable, like what was the point? I could see everything coming from a mile away --except maybe Lily's head opening up with the disco lights coming through lmao Some people said the premise of the movie happening mostly through the duration of a TV show in the 70s was ripped off from History of the occult, as an argentinian I just had to point that out
I don't really mind the use of AI (unless it's been trained on stolen data) but yeah, the bigger problem for me was the betrayal of its own premise and the end that just falls apart into nothingness. Overall I still think there's fun stuff in there and I can overlook a low budget production trying their best to do period recreation but with the way the film begins, it feels like it breaks its own established rules pretty quickly and then just nose dives. A bigger pet peeve of mine is the milking of satanic panic and trivialising the real people that lost years of their lives due to the hysteria by doubling down on the claim it was justified 😄
I watched the film yesterday, I thought it was entertaining. To me, it felt like a VHS franchise segment stretched into a film length. Will I rewatch it... probably not. Unrelated but your hair looks gorgeous!!
Thank you for this! Totally get where you're coming from on the AI. What was the point of that--just hire an artist. I had a great time watching this with friends. Chiefly, I loved the mood and the message that entertainment, itself, is sinister and exploitative. Loved the practical and digital effects, too. It's a win. The only thing that bugged me was I felt the "skeptic" character was pretty one-note and gave a community theater style of performance. He made me cringe more than intended, I think. Absolutely recommended, though.
I didn't notice/care about the use of AI in this movie, and I was able to believe the 70s vibe/feel. And I really liked the gore & special effects. My only complaints were that it felt like I was watching a Twilight Zone episode rather than a full length movie, and that I didn't feel satisfied w/ the ending. It felt like a non-ending to me.
Rewatched yesterday and still dig what it set out to do. AI not a big deal unless it affects jobs or gets in the way of creatives. Looking fabulous 👸🤘🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I agree with you - I liked the movie but felt like it could have gone further and used more effects or filmmaking techniques to lean into the time period it was meant to be set in.
your idea of cutting away to 70s style Halloween commercials would have been so fun as for AI -- I really don't mind it. We should be encouraging lower budget horror films like this one, and one way to cut budgets is to use AI imagery. There can be an upside to this. You may say, "no that took an artist's job away". Well they likely just wouldn't have had those cutaways because they wouldn't be able to afford an artist. So the cutaways wouldn't have made it into the film at all, making for a lesser experience overall.
I agree with your 1st comment. Vicky's idea of us being the actual at home audience with fake commercials to sit thru would've been a very cool premise imo
I think a lot of people (especially the sag writers that were striking last summer) are worried about the implications of AI in large studios to cut costs, especially in tbe cases where they do have the money to hire a real person. The more normalized it becomes the more of a problem it might turn out to be 🫤
(spoilers!) On principle, I wanted to avoid giving this film my money due to its use of AI. Then I just became generally disinterested in it, and didn't really plan on making an effort to watch it. My friend was hosting a movie night though and invited me along, so I went. Ultimately, this movie was pretty disappointing. It felt really tonally inconsistent, I couldn't get behind the premise of the cameras rolling during commercial break and just accidentally framing the characters well, or the camera reaching an angle where, with the technology the movie is supposed to have, a camera shouldn't even be able to fit. Conceptually, this movie could have been very cool. I love possession horror, I love it when girls fuck shit up, but this was not a great movie by any means. And especially the ending, I couldn't tell if that whole sequence was part of the live broadcast or not? Either way, lots of wasted potential, AI is killing art, etc etc. Ingrid Torelli did great with what she was given, though.
Yes! I find it so hard to suspend my disbelief for multiple angles of perfect framed shots of the bts stuff....unless you established a reason for it early on!
I just watched it. Your video reminded me it was out. It was very over the top. I wasn't sure how I felt until the last segment, which kind of redeemed it?
@@NightmareMaven of course it did and it had not godal marketing it was a Halloween trick that went well, too well I was only 1 in 1992 but can see how it fool viewers of that time no Internet marketing back then.
I think its a drag that the movie is being reduced to this one (justifiable) criticism, especially when its total screentime is like a max of 20 seconds. When I saw it at a festival last year not one person I spoke to noticed, besides myself (and I'm a professional designer so its right on top of mind). I think its inclusion in the trailer and the scrutiny of the pause button is the only reason it became widely noted and then A Whole Thing(TM) the way it did. And while I think its a critique worth making I do think this movie offers a whole hell of a lot more. So much more that if they removed those portions almost nothing about the movie changes for better or worse. I appreciate that your issue is more of an experiential problem than simply fixating on perhaps the smallest aspect of the production simply because of it's recent cultural prominence as An Issue... but I also definitely (and respectfully!) disagree that it takes you out of the 70's aesthetic. I think the CG you mentioned is FAR more disruptive to that than anything else in that regard. But even that didn't bother me too much, because it's pastiche, not a Fincher or Nolan production with endless resources to make it indistinguishable from that time period. Instead I got what I wanted out of it, which is the feeling of live TV going sideways in bizarre and unbelievable ways, and the story of the inherent corruption of seeking fame at all costs. It was dark played light, with lots of references to the culture/productions that it homages, until an eventual collapse of pretense into total chaos... exactly what I hoped for. So, much love, but we on a different page here! PS I'm really grateful that there are movies like this making money... and I wish this movie's crossover potential wasn't hobbled by this one thing purely because it's on everyones mind right now. It's crazy to me that people will, with full throat and ire, demonize smalltime filmmakers for fucking up something this small on their production... all under the banner of Helping Small Artists. Wild.
Yeah I think there was a missing, more nuanced, discussion of tbe difference between a small production using this kind of technology and a huge studio that absolutely has the money to afford hiring a real person - also the difference when they're using a program that steals from existing material made by real people
Yeah, especially at the time the Cairnes made that call for Late Night. I think now, after the strike and everything else, it’s far more gauche to do this, since nearly every model available uses stolen material, and we all understand that to be true now. I’m less inclined to let it slide in movies made within the past year. And especially less inclined for movies that are lazy in other ways, which I argue this movie isnt
It was a great showcase for David Dastmalchian as a lead actor. I hope he gets more leading roles in the future!
It has become one of my favorites. It wasn't close to what it could be. It had an awesome premise and could have been so much more, I agree. But the plot and the feel it gives off is the right kind of creepy.
I agree completely
I also found the movie entirely predictable, like what was the point? I could see everything coming from a mile away --except maybe Lily's head opening up with the disco lights coming through lmao
Some people said the premise of the movie happening mostly through the duration of a TV show in the 70s was ripped off from History of the occult, as an argentinian I just had to point that out
Did you get a haircut? Looks nice today either way :).
I don't really mind the use of AI (unless it's been trained on stolen data) but yeah, the bigger problem for me was the betrayal of its own premise and the end that just falls apart into nothingness. Overall I still think there's fun stuff in there and I can overlook a low budget production trying their best to do period recreation but with the way the film begins, it feels like it breaks its own established rules pretty quickly and then just nose dives. A bigger pet peeve of mine is the milking of satanic panic and trivialising the real people that lost years of their lives due to the hysteria by doubling down on the claim it was justified 😄
I watched the film yesterday, I thought it was entertaining. To me, it felt like a VHS franchise segment stretched into a film length. Will I rewatch it... probably not.
Unrelated but your hair looks gorgeous!!
Thank you for this! Totally get where you're coming from on the AI. What was the point of that--just hire an artist. I had a great time watching this with friends. Chiefly, I loved the mood and the message that entertainment, itself, is sinister and exploitative. Loved the practical and digital effects, too. It's a win. The only thing that bugged me was I felt the "skeptic" character was pretty one-note and gave a community theater style of performance. He made me cringe more than intended, I think. Absolutely recommended, though.
I didn't notice/care about the use of AI in this movie, and I was able to believe the 70s vibe/feel.
And I really liked the gore & special effects.
My only complaints were that it felt like I was watching a Twilight Zone episode rather than a full length movie, and that I didn't feel satisfied w/ the ending. It felt like a non-ending to me.
Oo yeah the twilight zone vibes are definitely there!
Rewatched yesterday and still dig what it set out to do. AI not a big deal unless it affects jobs or gets in the way of creatives. Looking fabulous 👸🤘🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I agree with you - I liked the movie but felt like it could have gone further and used more effects or filmmaking techniques to lean into the time period it was meant to be set in.
your idea of cutting away to 70s style Halloween commercials would have been so fun
as for AI -- I really don't mind it. We should be encouraging lower budget horror films like this one, and one way to cut budgets is to use AI imagery. There can be an upside to this. You may say, "no that took an artist's job away". Well they likely just wouldn't have had those cutaways because they wouldn't be able to afford an artist. So the cutaways wouldn't have made it into the film at all, making for a lesser experience overall.
I agree with your 1st comment. Vicky's idea of us being the actual at home audience with fake commercials to sit thru would've been a very cool premise imo
I think a lot of people (especially the sag writers that were striking last summer) are worried about the implications of AI in large studios to cut costs, especially in tbe cases where they do have the money to hire a real person. The more normalized it becomes the more of a problem it might turn out to be 🫤
(spoilers!)
On principle, I wanted to avoid giving this film my money due to its use of AI. Then I just became generally disinterested in it, and didn't really plan on making an effort to watch it. My friend was hosting a movie night though and invited me along, so I went. Ultimately, this movie was pretty disappointing. It felt really tonally inconsistent, I couldn't get behind the premise of the cameras rolling during commercial break and just accidentally framing the characters well, or the camera reaching an angle where, with the technology the movie is supposed to have, a camera shouldn't even be able to fit.
Conceptually, this movie could have been very cool. I love possession horror, I love it when girls fuck shit up, but this was not a great movie by any means. And especially the ending, I couldn't tell if that whole sequence was part of the live broadcast or not? Either way, lots of wasted potential, AI is killing art, etc etc. Ingrid Torelli did great with what she was given, though.
Yes! I find it so hard to suspend my disbelief for multiple angles of perfect framed shots of the bts stuff....unless you established a reason for it early on!
Off topic, your hair is very cute!
Thank you! 🥰
I just watched it. Your video reminded me it was out. It was very over the top. I wasn't sure how I felt until the last segment, which kind of redeemed it?
The last sequence definitely was my favorite part 🤘
Have you ever seen Ghostwatch? Because I was watching thinking Ghostwatch meets the King Of Comedy. I thought it was a Devlish delight.
Ghostwatch did this concept better, imo. It scared the crap out of me!!! 😂
@@NightmareMaven of course it did and it had not godal marketing it was a Halloween trick that went well, too well I was only 1 in 1992 but can see how it fool viewers of that time no Internet marketing back then.
I think its a drag that the movie is being reduced to this one (justifiable) criticism, especially when its total screentime is like a max of 20 seconds. When I saw it at a festival last year not one person I spoke to noticed, besides myself (and I'm a professional designer so its right on top of mind). I think its inclusion in the trailer and the scrutiny of the pause button is the only reason it became widely noted and then A Whole Thing(TM) the way it did. And while I think its a critique worth making I do think this movie offers a whole hell of a lot more. So much more that if they removed those portions almost nothing about the movie changes for better or worse.
I appreciate that your issue is more of an experiential problem than simply fixating on perhaps the smallest aspect of the production simply because of it's recent cultural prominence as An Issue... but I also definitely (and respectfully!) disagree that it takes you out of the 70's aesthetic. I think the CG you mentioned is FAR more disruptive to that than anything else in that regard.
But even that didn't bother me too much, because it's pastiche, not a Fincher or Nolan production with endless resources to make it indistinguishable from that time period. Instead I got what I wanted out of it, which is the feeling of live TV going sideways in bizarre and unbelievable ways, and the story of the inherent corruption of seeking fame at all costs. It was dark played light, with lots of references to the culture/productions that it homages, until an eventual collapse of pretense into total chaos... exactly what I hoped for.
So, much love, but we on a different page here!
PS
I'm really grateful that there are movies like this making money... and I wish this movie's crossover potential wasn't hobbled by this one thing purely because it's on everyones mind right now. It's crazy to me that people will, with full throat and ire, demonize smalltime filmmakers for fucking up something this small on their production... all under the banner of Helping Small Artists. Wild.
Yeah I think there was a missing, more nuanced, discussion of tbe difference between a small production using this kind of technology and a huge studio that absolutely has the money to afford hiring a real person - also the difference when they're using a program that steals from existing material made by real people
Yeah, especially at the time the Cairnes made that call for Late Night. I think now, after the strike and everything else, it’s far more gauche to do this, since nearly every model available uses stolen material, and we all understand that to be true now. I’m less inclined to let it slide in movies made within the past year. And especially less inclined for movies that are lazy in other ways, which I argue this movie isnt
I absolutely love the movie. New subscriber!🎃
Yay! Welcome!!! 👻🥰