“The Horror Collective’s mission is to uplift new and exciting voices, to help create the next generation of horror masters. Rot is one of those movies that is a perfect example of the kind of people and content we want to work with and we’re proud to add to our slate."
-Shaked Berenson, CEO of Entertainment Squad.
Every once in a while when I do my standard background check on the movies I cover, I find one with almost zero behind-the-scenes stuff. Wikipedia pages that basically just serve as a record of the movie exists at all with the most bare-bones possible info. That's weird in itself, but often times its those same movies that have the highest reviews and are often the most enjoyable. this is one of those movies.
put on your thinking caps and smarty pants yall, it's time for some
"intelligent horror"
After bookworm, Madison breaks up with her boyfriend Jesse (Johnny Kostrey) due to them having different life paths and her studies being more important than anything else. Later in the story, Jesse gets infected by a rare rage virus from an elderly woman while in the process of trying to propose to Madison. After the infection runs its course, rage takes over Jesse's body, turning him into a nightmare from hell.
This movie caught my eye right away with its gorgeous directing and its instantly dark-as-hell tone. first, this movie sucks you in with its dark nursing home plot, and then moves on to show you a bunch of reasonably stressed-out young adults dealing with the various stresses of college and young love. What Rot does well is provide an excellent ensemble of characters that offer enough development that you care about what happens to them. that's good to have once Jesse goes from nice boy to toxic masculinity incarnate, and that firm sense of reality really makes the spooky shit harder when it starts off properly.
It reminds me of THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE's brand of real-life mental health horror, and I love the obvious real-world parallels as this movie bounces between genres for a while. Sometimes this is a horror movie, sometimes it's a soap opera-style romantic drama, and sometimes it feels almost like a John Hughes comedy. the first hour or so isn't really focused on being a horror movie (which probably leads to that sluggish feeling) but this movie keeps cranking up the intensity, and before it's all over this movie delivers on the gory promise being called Croneburgian implies. at least that's what I'm told
but you definitely have to wait a while for this to become a proper horror movie, and this middle act feels sluggish. the movie doesn't really give you a reason to be afraid of Jesse or show you exactly what he has or hasn't been doing, so you are left with tension that's fairly easy to shake off. we don't get a real kill until right around the 1-hour mark, and even then we never get any confirmation that it was even a kill. it doesn't help that a few other people have been infected with the rage virus, so not only is this part slow but full of angry assholes. Strong characters are great and all... but could we move the story on please instead of checking in with everyone all the ding dang time?
this movie starts off really strong and then kind of just leaves you in a boring limbo of waiting for something to happen. they do play around a bit with the idea this virus is actually some kind of sentient beings vessel, but that doesn't really get developed so... you wait around some more.
and then, only if you are me, you give up and turn off the movie
8/10
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