Movie Review: The Girl in the Photographs

Warning: Spoilers

Going through the new releases on Netflix, I came across The Girl in the Photographs because of the awesome artwork on the cover. A little “pop-punk” for a horror movie, but so is Buzzkill so I think it works. Main character Kal Penn (I personally miss the delightful whimsy of Kumar, before Hollywood tanked your soul. Maybe brought things a little close to home with the character, acting might have been too good) still solidly funny dialogue, great delivery. Also, Penn knew his character voluntarily walked everyone into the bees' nest, and that meant he should get sliced up first. Very solid character, so ironic I’ll consider it a good thing.

I really liked this cast, which helps bring some seriousness to what happens in the film. Every character was meant to provoke a different emotion, each delivered.

We will now go through the slasher check-list. First, we had a great gratuitous sex scene, with great tots (yes, I said tots) for a solid 30 seconds. If I was 15, that would have been tucked safely into my iphone pictures for future study. The scene was juxtaposed with the two prudy white kids talking awkwardly about how eventually they might be doing that one day. Check.

Now, if I were the predicting type I would say that the police chief and deputy would be responsible in some way that gets revealed in the next movie. The chief was arrogant and incompetent (maybe that’s Hollywood’s influence again). He might have a disturbed son, who knows. A bit predictable having the cops be so unwilling to help, but it’s a horror-movie, so it’s not a huge deal.

Next the evil-doers. Really solid. Luke Baines character was perfect. Creepy has hell in first reveal, and solidly non-threatening towards the lead actress in public. His associate is pretty terrifying as well. The reveal on him screamed “Hills Have Eyes” lineage. I like the idea of the two characters practicing the creepy walking together before they actually started kidnapping people. “Slow down, it’s not sinister enough!” The duo really brought the hammer down. Check.

The gore was delved out in perfect over-exaggeration. The timing of the story line from funny, to sexy, to unbelievably gory made me cheer a couple times (yea, that’s a little sick). I knew Wes Craven was behind it in some way. I truly love this genre. As I look to verify that Craven was in fact an executive producer, I’m seeing a 16% rotten tomatoes score for the film. This just means there are tons of haters, even when the product is good.

I won’t even go into things I disliked about the move because they’re mostly artistic and I can be a nit-picky asshole (anyone else?). There should be more movies like this. The Scream/horror genre should be cool again. I believe it will happen with time. This movie was a great start. I hope it catches on.

Overall - Must see