31 Days of Halloween: It's What's Inside

2024, Greg Jardin (feature debut) -- Netflix

Is there now potentially a new sub-genre of watching privileged beautiful young people undo themselves purely through the nature of their vapid and self-centered personalities? Usually in a violent way? If so, I think that makes more commentary of the creators of such sub-genres than the subject matter they are commenting on. But who am I to talk, as I yell at clouds...

FYI, last year's example was Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. And again, full disclosure, this did not end up identifying as horror. It could have, but instead, it more went down the path of scifi thriller with dark comedy elements.

OK, the movie begins with Shelby (Brittany O'Grady, Star) trying to convince Cyrus (James Morosini, American Horror Story) to have sex by wearing a blonde wig, but ends up just interrupting him wanking, which then leads to a realllllly awkward argument. Shelby is gorgeous, Cyrus is an idiot, but she suspects he is thinking about influencer Nikki who, of course, gets more Likes than Shelby does.

They are all meeting in The Countryside at the estate of Reuben's (Devon Terrell, Cursed) late mother, a shock artist (giant chrome vulva on her lawn), for one last shindig before he gets married (hashtag Reuphia). These old college friends include aforementioned Nikki the Influencer (Alycia Debnam-Carey, The 100), Dennis the Hedonist (Gavin Leatherwood, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Maya the Hippie Dippie (Nina Bloomgarden, The Resort), Brooke the Artist (Reina Hardesty, The Flash) and eventually Forbes the Tech Mogul (David Thompson, Gotham). You could build a red yarn "murder board" connecting all these "friends" together in contentious and misguided ways, especially Forbes whom most of them haven't seen since college (which, said out loud, tells me they are not all that young -- late twenties, early thirties) a decade earlier, where a singular event involving Forbes high school age sister got him kicked out of university.

When he shows it is with a party trick -- a suitcase (with a nod to Pulp Fiction) with something mysterious within, something analog, something full of switches and electrodes and lights and nobs. He says his company has been working on it. He doesn't explain what it is, just sets it up, electrodes on everyone's temples and BLINK, for a brief moment they are all in each other's bodies. Freaky Friday the app. For even the even more briefest of moments they are all freaked out, and then they agree to play along with a "game" of guess who is in who's body.

Much of the middle act is about people freaking out at each other, interspersed with artistic flairs supplemented by the strange setup of the late artist mom's house: hall of mirrors, halls of all red or all blue lighting, etc. The director is really REALLY impressed with himself, and all his visual representations of the characters' temperaments. The only thing I was impressed with was the ability of each actor to play another character; even if you dismiss us as only having seen their extreme traits, the actors do an admirable job playing through those roles.

Things are already going wrong when they go worse --- Reuben and Brooke, in the bodies of Dennis and Maya fall off a balcony and die horribly. So, that means  at least two of them will have to stay inside the bodies not their own, but they also have to explain the accidental deaths. It wouldn't be that bad but for the fact the "game" has led to almost everyone letting everyone else know how they really feel about each other. Everyone is very unpleasant. I don't have any sympathy for anyone, not even "nice girl" Shelby.

It was a sliver above ... just OK ? The tension is often overwrought and the setup is ridiculous but its played through decently enough even if you don't count on the "twist" which was mostly extraneous to the movie, but tied up things in a bow?

Dude, what the fuck was the twist? Nobody here cares about the spoiler.

OK, said twist was that it was never Forbes to begin with. It was always his sister Beatrice (Madison Davenport, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series) who was slasher-movie level nutso, completely unhinged, and had stolen the machine from Forbes who was stuck in her body. I felt the whole thing was an unneeded add-on which should have stuck with just showing how horrible all these kids were.

This is the point in watching this season where I hit, "Why do we do this, if there are so many 'just meh' movies?" Good question. It could be as easy an answer as, "To find the diamonds among the coal." But that is too pat because as we sit down each night, we ask, "What do you want to watch?" even when there is a list of Good Choices right in front of us. I do feel we have to temper it, not binge on high-tension high-quality too quickly or we will..... become over satiated? That makes a bit more sense, no?