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The Resort review – inane horror film or a sophisticated meta-joke?

Perhaps the director wanted a holiday in Hawaii or to audition for a gig making episodes of Love Island

Four friends who look like models take a trip to a remote Hawaiian island to check out a shuttered resort where spooky, unnatural things happened years ago. Apparently, the place is haunted by the vengeful ghost of a native girl whose face was mutilated back then. Will anyone survive to write a TripAdvisor review?

This inane horror movie is so ludicrously cliche-ridden one starts to wonder if it’s not some kind of sophisticated meta-joke being played on us. How else can we account for choices such as having the whole thing told as a flashback from a hospital bed, by sole survivor Lex (Bianca Haase)? Is it some kind of nudge in the proverbial ribs that, as we see the quartet strip off to swim near a waterfall, we hear Lex intone solemnly that this was the last time they were happy? (Spoiler: because everyone is going to die.) And was writer-director-producer Taylor Chien hoping to use this as a calling card to get a gig making episodes of Love Island? Or did he and his friends just fancy a holiday in Hawaii?

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vnD29a
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