Let's Be Evil (2016)

Let's Be Evil is the cinematographic embodiment of a downward spiral. I was lured in by interesting visuals and then everything from there was a mess. But while I'm on a horror movie review kick for October, let's nut this one out!

The premise deserves credit for trying to use creepy kids in a different way. A top secret operation employs three cash hungry twenty somethings to be caretakers for a bunch of genius kids in an augmented reality brain training facility, but complications unsurprisingly result in a plot that is focused on trying to look cool and be different rather than tell a human story. 

The major issue I had with Let's Be Evil was that so much of the plot and the character emotions are told through outright dialogue, rather than shown through action. It’s stuff that your screenwriting teacher would have rolled their eyes at - characters straight up saying “It’s a puzzle. Like that one from earlier.” Give your audience some credit. The visual medium is made for showing and not telling, and I felt like everything was being read to me. Then there's the twist which feels inevitable, despite having no real flags, and an ending that is an attempt at depth but feels shallow and thrown together. There are huge gaps in internal logic and despite periods of tension, everything feels too sketched out to hold any real weight or to allow for the excuse of those huge flaws.

Rating: 2.5/10 - Credit where it's due for some cool techniques and ideas, but this movie felt way too intro-to-sci-fi. There was nothing in this movie to latch on to and nothing human about it, not in a way that felt intentional or allegorical.