I was born in 1982, which on calendar paper, puts my decaying bones in the age bracket of geriatric millennials or as I like to call myself, a Generation MilleXial (because, get it, I'm right in the middle). This means a lot of things to a lot of very meme-obsessed individuals, but for the purposes of today's review, it means, well...it means I feel very old.
Quick Plot: Lex, or as I will henceforth dub her, Birthday Girl, awakens in a Hawaiian hospital under the questioning eyes of a detective whose IMDB profile pic is as follows:
Sadly, that look didn't make it into The Resort, but I felt it important for you to know.
Birthday Girl was found unconscious on the abandoned Kilahuna Island, the legendarily cursed former home of a multi-million dollar hotel long abandoned after stories circulated of the ghostly Half-Faced Girl. Knowing Birthday Girl wanted to write about the story, her boyfriend (who looks so much like a man-bunned variation of Chris Hemsworth in A Perfect Getaway that I will obviously now refer to him as Poor Manbun's Chris Hemsworth) and best friends Admitted Michael Bay Fan and Instagram Model (sorry, GRAM Model) chip in to take her on a helicopter trip to Kilahuna.
Things go swimmingly.
LITERALLY.
I'm literally telling you the truth, since we get a pleasant montage of these very attractive actors slow-motion frolicking through a waterfall. Also, if you find yourself getting bored over the scant but kind of slow 76 minute running time, might I suggest making a drinking game based on how many times characters use the magic word "literally".
And yes, double shots when they use it incorrectly.
Eventually, the quartet makes it to the titular resort, and a few selfie mistakes later, they're being hunted by a ghostly force in the dark. We're about 50 minutes in before the action kicks in, which wouldn't be terrible if it was justified by the ensuing 26 minutes (well, those are some Charles Band-ish timed credits, so probably more like 22).
Written and directed by Taylor Chien, The Resort is certainly nice to look at. And that's about it. The story doesn't do anything we don't expect, and the scares offer little in the way of surprise. Small tells in the audio quality suggest Chien was working off a low budget so full credit for how he made those dollars stretch. I just wish there was more ground to cover.
High Points
They're working with screenplay scraps, but for the most part, the cast does an adequate enough job of holding the story together...
Low Points
I just wish there was anything there to actually hold?
Lessons Learned
Unless you like tequila-infused wraps, make sure you use name-brand Ziploc bags to transport your hiking lunch
If you have any reservations that your final runtime might be lacking, be sure to use a lush filming location so you can pad your film with tree shots. It works!
Coyotes don't live in Hawaii
Rent/Bury/Buy
It's summer, which means I enjoy nothing more fully than a cheap horror film set in a scenic tropical location about attractive people put in terrible peril. On that front, The Resort sort of hits some marks, but unfortunately, it doesn't really make much of a splash. You're better off with a different variation on this title:
Zombie theme parks galore! Get THAT one!
Posts
This is by far your most curmudgeonly post in a while, and I love it. It's just oozing with scorn for youthful brats, which of course I totally sympathize with. I work with way too many 20-somethings now, and a lot of them really do use 'literally' that much. What's worse is that they often use it in ways that they must realize are totally incorrect -- for example, if they agree with something I'm saying, they respond with "Literally!" instead of "I couldn't agree more!" They're nice kids, they really are, but I have to limit my interactions with them lest I spontaneously combust. There's only so much of this kind of thing one can take.
ReplyDeleteYour Rezort post: I've never seen Ever After and while it doesn't sound like my kind of thing, your extended aside was as convincing as it gets. Brilliant.
It's reasons like these that I've adored your blog ever since I stumbled across it. Bravo, cheerio!
Ha! I have nothing AGAINST today's youth (aside from them making me feel very old) but it's just impossible to ignore how culturally different they are. I know my generation was berated for overusing "like". The next round is "literally," and the ones just behind them start every single statement with "I mean..." So it goes!
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you so much for the kind words. I mean, they're LITERALLY appreciated.
I'll go wash my mouth out with soap now. Hope you enjoy Ever After!