When I see a film like Don’t Look Up sitting on its fabricated shelves, a slight glare from the accent lighting sheering across the new plastic surfaces, my first thought generally regards what needs to be accomplished to make a cheap movie work. “You’d better compel me on a few levels,” I think to myself. Sometimes I even mutter a simile under my breath as I hold it in my hand. My second thought is, “This is probably going to hurt.” I don’t mind welcoming a little pain, but I hate wasting time on someone else’s shorthand.
Directed by Fruit Chan (that’s right… Fruit Chan, the director of such films as Three… Extremes and Public Toilet) Don’t Look Up is a remake of a 1996 Japanese film, a flash-in-the-pan tale of a tormented director. He has visions, fits in his sleep and sweats all the time. He must travel to Romania to film his “last chance” project. He must capture the story of Matya, a gypsy woman born into a cursed existence.
Before you know it, spirits called “mullis” escape from the celluloid and begin to drive the crew to the edge of their wits. Punctuating the drip of madness are strange occurrences backed up by horrible effects. Swarms of insects that attack crew members are a grandiose fake. Even the opening of the film (when Eli Roth’s over-acting is padding the stats) is quite cavalier in admitting this aspect of the film’s shortcomings as fake water explodes stemming cartoony waves across the screen. I didn’t mind it, but i had no clue as to where the film was going.
As a poor man’s Shadow of the Vampire, Chan’s film went straight to hell and it never looked back. Beginning and ending with horrible acting, directing and editing, I couldn’t help but think that if the film had any real substance, it may burst at the seams with its own inaneness. And maybe then – there’d be something aggrandizing to say on its behalf.
I gave this film the full 2 senses for its 98 minutes of stunning mediocrity. What I got back is the recurring image of a woman shooting a baby out of her vagina into a nearby wall. This is very similar to an effect that happens after asking my writers for anything.
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