Since the beginning of this year, there have been many topical works in the field of horror films.
"Broken Tomb", which hit the annual box office crown in South Korea, and the pseudo-documentary "Devil's Late Night Show", which has a good reputation, and so on.
Recently, another anticipated horror/thriller of the year has arrived, but after it was launched, it was full of bad reviews and controversy.
What is this film all about? Let's talk about it today-
Blood-eating ballet
Abigail
Producer: Matt Bettinelli-Orping / Taylor Gillette
Screenwriters: Guy Beysyk / Stephen Shields
Starring: Alyssa Weir / Melissa Barrera / Dan Stevens / Catherine Newton / Kevin Duran
Genre: Thriller / Horror
Language: English
Release: 2024-04-19 (US)
Runtime: 109 minutes
*Reminder: This article contains spoilers
The film's directors, Matt Bettinelli-Orping and Taylor Gillette, are a pair of prime partners who specialize in the field of horror/thriller.
In 2019, the two directed the horror/thriller "Are You Ready".
The film tells the story of a woman who joins a wealthy family, and is forced to participate in a game of "hide and seek" by the man's family on her wedding night, which turns into a bloody massacre.
Stills from "Are You Ready".
The film received a return of nearly 10 times with a small cost of $6 million, becoming a dark horse at the annual box office with a small and broad budget.
As a result, the two directors joined the creative team of Universal Pictures and took over the "Scream" IP, directing the fifth and sixth installments of the series.
The combination of their partners has also become a quality assurance in the hearts of many horror movie fans.
Stills from "Scream 5".
In addition, the actors in this movie are also familiar actors.
For example, "Uncle Fried Chicken" Giancarlo Esposito in "Breaking Bad", "Dan Stevens" in "Downton Abbey", Catherine Newton, a violent woman in "Happy Slashing", Angus Claude in "Excitement", and so on.
Angus Claude
But it is such a movie full of buffs, but the word-of-mouth plummeted after the streaming was launched.
What went wrong? Let's start with the story itself.
At the beginning of the film, it is a little girl dancing solo on stage. With the background music of "Swan Lake", a group of criminals also gathered.
And the purpose of their trip is to kidnap the dancing little girl and extort ransom.
Several people sneaked into the girl's house, stunned her, and took her to an old house in the suburbs.
One of the people in charge of the kidnapping was already waiting here, and he explained the rules of the kidnapping to the kidnappers.
It turned out that each of the kidnappers present did not know each other, and they had to keep their identities secret, so they could only communicate under pseudonyms, and they could not ask for information about the little girl and her father.
While the person in charge is extorting the ransom, the group of kidnappers needs to wait in this house for 24 hours to ensure the personal safety of the little girl.
During these 24 hours, they need to hand in their mobile phones and cannot go out or communicate with the outside world.
When the ransom is paid, the gang will be disbanded on the spot and will not disturb each other in the future.
Among the kidnappers was a woman named Joey, a former military doctor with an extremely keen sense of observation.
In just a few hours of getting along, she saw through the identities of several other people through various clues.
Detective Frank, soldier Ricos, thug Pete, rich girl Sammy, and hacker Dean.
These people are involved in this kidnapping, either for money or for excitement, and they all have hidden hidden experiences behind them.
For example, Joy, a military doctor, was wounded in a war, but while receiving treatment, she accidentally contracted a drug addiction due to morphine.
She divorced her husband because of drug abuse, and she was separated from her son because of this.
She came to participate in this kidnapping so that she could reunite with her son and start a new life after getting the money.
In this kidnapping operation, Joey was also given a special identity, that is, the little girl's "nanny".
Only she was able to enter and exit the little girl's room, take care of the little girl and soothe her emotions.
During the exchange, Joey learns that the girl is not valued by her father, and she rarely receives her father's affection.
Flooded with maternal love, she unfastened the girl's blindfold and promised to keep her safe.
When Joey leaves the girl's room, a curious Frank also enters the room in violation of the rules.
He didn't know that the girl's blindfold was undone, so the girl saw her face clearly.
In a fit of rage, he raised his pistol and asked the little girl about her identity and father, only to hear a name that shocked him: Christopher Lazar.
It's a name that's enough to shock both black and white, and there are many rumors about Lazar.
He owns all kinds of industries that rival the wealth of the country, and employs extremely brutal killers.
After three of Lazar's subordinates were arrested by the police, they became tainted witnesses and were protected by the police.
But even if a dozen FBI agents were dispatched, the three were placed in a safe house on the top floor of the hotel, and they were monitored 24 hours a day.
The next day, the men died mysteriously in a safe house and were brutally dismembered.
After this incident, Lazar became a ruthless person who did not dare to provoke both black and white.
Upon learning that the kidnapped girl was Lazar's daughter, Frank immediately said he wanted to withdraw from the operation and leave the place immediately.
But when he opened the door of the old mansion, he found that the outside was surrounded by a tight cage.
He tried to force the door by force, but accidentally touched the mechanism and sealed all the windows of the old mansion.
At this point, all exits to this old mansion have been completely closed, and it has become an inaccessible secret room.
The group began to try to find the control room of the mechanism, so they started a carpet search in the old mansion.
But in the process of searching, they died mysteriously one after another, and the death was very tragic.
What the hell is going on? Who is the murderer in the secret room? Will any of the kidnappers escape alive?
There are not too many spoilers for these puzzles, and you can go to the movie to find the answers.
As a bloody horror film, "Blood-Eating Ballet" has a very high plasma content, which makes the audience who is good at it so happy that they can't stop.
Among them, there is a clip of crazy vomiting blood for nearly 20 seconds, which can be said to be the longest blood-vomiting scene in film history.
Even the actor said in an interview that he could only see his eyes and teeth when filming these scenes of plasma rush, and it took a long time to rush to the bathroom immediately after filming to clean it.
And due to the consumption of a large number of plasma packets, in order to control costs, the film crew also specifically required that this scene must be "passed".
It can be said that in terms of gore, this R-rated movie is absolutely the extreme.
But in addition to this commendable merit, the film exposes too many creative and expressive problems.
One of the biggest problems is that there are too many elements in the film, and various types of chaos make the audience's feelings at the audio-visual level extremely mixed.
From the agent kidnapping at the beginning, to the secret room horror in the middle, to the monster plasma in the back, and the vampire smash brawl at the end, etc.
Through a hodgepodge of various elements, it can indeed bring a steady stream of freshness to the audience, but it will inevitably sacrifice the rationality at the level of narrative and logic.
The ballet elements in the title are forcibly associated with a few ballet and ballet action shots.
Other than that, the film doesn't have any ballet-related ups and downs.
It gives people a sense of déjà vu when writing essays that they find out of topic and have to make up for the sake of making mistakes.
Not only that, but the setting of vampires in the film is not rigorous, which leads to the villain's combat power being strong and weak, and the forced "girls help girls" at the end of the film, which is stiffly valued in order to conform to the current mainstream values, etc.
These have greatly reduced the perception of this horror film, and they are also the main reason why this film has been criticized by the audience.
Overall, "Bloodthirsty Ballet", as a horror film that is expected to be seen for the year, did not meet the expectations of most audiences.
But if you are a lover of plasma horror movies that have no requirements for plot and logic, it will surely refresh your perception of the plasma volume of a horror movie.
A tribute to the late actor Angus Crowder at the end of the film