Popcorn

If I listed every sin this movie commits, this review would run 10,000 words. This is a lazy, inconsistent, sloppy, stupid, baseline piece of junk. It’s never half as clever as it thinks it is, never as funny as it wants to be, and never scary at all. The kills are PG, bloodless things, as scary as Transylvania 6-5000. The killer’s identity is obvious the moment he steps on screen, despite the fact that the gimmick of his ability to change identities makes no sense when he apparently can also change height, weight, and build. There’s a supernatural element introduced in a scene where the letters jump off a marquee and something new is spelled out, but this is never referenced or explained. The movie wants to seem like it’s aware of movies and movie cliches, but is blissfully unaware of slashers and their cliches, which this movie employs like a life support system. The acting is dull, the script is all boilerplate slasher tropes, the dialogue is cringe-worthy in the worst way, plot developments happen because they need to and not out of any sense of natural course of action, the sound mixing is inconsistent, the movies-within-the-movie take up too much runtime, the killer’s make-up and design is almost comical in nature … I could go on and on. I could write a college thesis on this movie’s comprehensive failure at literally everything it tries to do. And what’s worst of all is, it’s not even offensively bad. It’s just done with so little effort or spirit or originality. You won’t walk away angry; you’ll just be amazed at how boring it is, and how every element of it is empty of anything positive.