The question arose when I finished watching this movie, is it worth it to have that many twisting sides of a story in a single narrative?
Bestseller begins with a stereotypical horror tale with a struggling female novelist with her depression after accused for plagiarism and writer's block. Away from her estranged husband, she with her daughter encounters horror after they move to an old villa in a small city with a secret.
Actually, this movie is promising when the first plot is over, although obvious, it makes an expectation about the mystery and horror combination like The Ring. However, the plot drastically changes into a crime thriller without any traces from the first plot scenes. No apparitions, no jumpscares, just pure crime thriller you'd know and love. It's okay too. Then, all of sudden the mystery in the plot starts to unveiled, but another plot suddenly came in. It's (also) not shocking, but I felt tired. Luckily, the movie ends.
I have watched these kind of movies with drastic changes of plot to give a sense of longing shock and twist so that the impression lasts longer. This movie clearly wants to head that direction, because I noticed for few times the nature of the movie keeps changing throughout the duration. You will have horror jumpscare scenes, continued by psychological horror, followed by crime investigation, and finished by "slapstick" thriller that brings more comedic scenes. Is it not okay?
The movie is actually okay in terms of the production design and the acting. They convey the situation in the scenes pretty much as expected. Besides that, the screenplay really wants to have all packages of what you may expect from a horror/thriller/mystery/crime film. It's good if you separate it, but to collide them and crumble the plot for almost two hours, the movie only left confusing storyline with certain good scenes.
Three plots, should be offered separately or make a solid premise that have to be consistent. This movie seems potential to have the second option (I mean, the screenplay and story are quite complex), so why went the difficult way to narrates a disjointed story? It's like someone greedy wants to execute a fairly good screenplay with all genres. Only ends bad, unfortunately.
I don't know if this movie is worth watching. If you can concentrate with the confusing storyline, I guess it's okay to give it a try. For me, acknowledging the plots with 6/10 is enough to covers up the failed ambition. And, no need to rewatch it.
