Perhaps disappointment is too strong a word. I left the theater (yes, I actually ventured out to a real theater today) feeling…underwhelmed. As I told a friend, perhaps i’m so thoroughly familiar with the lore of the Backrooms world that nothing really grabs me about it any more. I found Kane’s original five videos far more engaging.
Don’t get me wrong: the performances were spot on. The sets and effects were of a quality that we’ve all come to expect from a summer movie. But in trying to explain what the “monster” was, I think Kane and crew missed the mark. The monter in his original videos is never explained; it just is, and I think they should’ve done the same with the movie. The unknown (and its motivations) is far more viscerally frightening than a monster whose origin and motivations are all explained and tied up with a neat little bow.
Or maybe I’ve just become so old and jaded that movies in general no longer give the that endorphin rush they used to when I was in my 20s and 30s.
At this point, I’m expected to be sorely disappointed by the two other movies I’m actually going to a theater to see this summer, Disclosure Day and of course, DUNE 3. I hope i’m proven wrong; I hope at least one of them wows me.