Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

Review of Unhinged

Unhinged (II) (2017)
2/10
Earn that title! Or try, at least.
15 March 2018
Sometimes it can be most useful to analyze something small and seemingly insignificant like, for example, a film's title! My mother tongue isn't English, but I've always been impressed by the number of synonyms that exist in this language for practically every single word. Some of these synonyms are truly cool and powerful words. As an example, I love the word "unhinged". I never heard of that word until I watched the 1982 original film and found out, via the awesome website thesaurus.com that it's a synonym for insane, berserk, manic etc. It's now one of my favorite words, and I also happen to be one of the few people who thinks that the original "Unhinged" is a uniquely grim and massively underrated 80s slasher! That film, with its demented storyline and notable moments of nauseating gore, truly deserved to be named "Unhinged". This 2017 remake shamelessly copies the title, but the atmosphere, the violence, the characters and simply the film in general are not "unhinged". In fact, it's weak and unremarkable horror fodder with a dumb and totally implausible plot, spineless lead characters and a nearly unforgivable shortage of blood, savagery and overall weirdness. Four American girls take an enormous detour through the English countryside to go to the wedding of one of them. That's where the story goes wrong already. A bachelorette-party in the backwoods, seriously? Why would any girl want to drive through a completely unknown region where there's absolutely nothing to see? They are not lost, or at least not at first, but deliberately avoid the main roads. Why, exactly is that? They clearly never listened to any basic traveling safety advise or even watched a horror movie in their lives, because they are surprised when they run into crazy people. How they then handle their problems is, if possible, even more stupid and unbelievable. "Unhinged" features all the irritating clichés and predictable plot twists you can think of. These girls take the dumbest decisions imaginable (like not calling the police when their mobiles still have signal) and do the most idiotic things that even my 5-year-old wouldn't do (like running off into the woods after a banal argument). All this might have been acceptable in the early 80s, but not now. The killings are tame, bloodless and not at all unhinged. The performances are very poor and unconvincing, especially from Michelle Archer as the odd lady and Lorena Andrea & Becca Hirana as the supposed tough chicks. I'm sorry, but there's absolutely nothing to recommend here.
21 out of 26 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed