Reviews

Could easily frame Rio for the murder and say that they were forced into it all with the threat of murder. At this point, putting their family (KIDS) in severe danger is getting too stupid. Beth is the absolute worst.

They would all have targets on their backs, they would be watched or in custody after their history, the poor bird, the GPS on the phone, Ruby's kids/husband, and now grave robbing? This could all be stopped and they're not even trying. Really disappointing as this show when from Witty, intense, and interesting to close to impossible to continue watching.

I was interested until roughly 18 minutes in. Then I almost turned it off. I left it on hoping it would get better because I heard really great things about the movie and I love Evan Rachel Wood. Her acting was good, and Gina Rodriguez did a great job in her role. There were some touching moments but a lot of strange "what the f" moments. It was "watchable" but I would not recommend.

Spoilers ahead:

It's pretty slow-going overall. There were some redeemable parts to the movie but a lot of loopholes throughout that frustrated me. They are threatened to be evicted but then that issue kinda fades into the background and they seem to continue living there and getting away with it. The girl on the airplane makes no sense that she would behave the way she does from start to finish- why was she so enticed by the parents when meeting them on the plane, why was she so willing to help them, why did she continue to stick around and why on earth did she let them into her home? I don't understand how the parents were able to successfully steal everything - EVERYTHING - dishes, frames, the money, literally everything in her house without either of them waking up? And after knowing how terrible and untrustworthy the parents are, she still left her home (I assume) unlocked.

The cutesy little bow at the end where she got her exact cut of the money - 525.00 - was symbolic at best, but incredibly unrealistic as the parents do not seem smart enough, nor is it that easy, to find items that would equal the exact amount of 525.00.

Overall I would not recommend this movie. Is it watchable? Yes, sure. Was it *worth* watching? Eh.

Could not get past the unnecessary inappropriate relationship between the older man and young child. This movie would have been a solid 9/10 if instead it was a more father-daughter type of relationship instead of a disturbing almost sexual one. I have read that there are additional deleted/cut scenes which I am thankful I didn't have to watch.

I personally found this episode very moving. The young actors did a great job showing the battlefield of a first love and the innocence of learning your way as a teen. The bottle rockets, sneaking around, etc., were all common things i and my friends did at that age. This episode brought up a lot of nostalgia and past heartbreaks/rejections of my own. I wasn't a huge fan of the therapist, but I do wish Darby would have continued to go back to therapy so that this didn't end up being a throwaway episode.

This show seems to have the same format: things are going great, a tragedy happens, she is supportive and sweet while the guy falls apart and ruins things. This happens yet again where things are great until he loses his job and things she ignored are now unavoidable. It held my attention, but is getting a little redundant for my taste.

I really enjoyed the first episode, and loved the first half of this episode. Got incredibly cringy toward the end. I will say, some of her actions made sense but I also think most people would have just gone home instead of do what Darby did. I also may have missed something, or it may get explained later in the season, but I don't fully understand why she bought her classmate's photo at the end.

I guess killer vines aren't easy to translate onto the big screen. I have read the book over and over since it came out when I was in high school. I love it so much that I own two copies - a hardcover and a small portable copy. Many others who I have recommended it to really enjoyed it.

That's why it is so frustrating to see what a failure this movie was, which is a shame since the author helped write most of the script. He swapped the characters around in the film and removed most, if not all, of their backstory. I understand a movie cannot fully embody the essence of a book, but while reading, you become familiar and somewhat attached to the characters, which allows you to relate with them in a chilling way that leaves you a bit unsettled when they're being tortured and killed off by this sentient plant. In the movie, I could not bring myself to care about what happens to these people as I have zero emotional investment to them, nor do I even gain any interest in them as they are the most bland characters I've ever seen in a film besides Twilight. They could have discussed the hardships of no food/drink, missing their families, or spoke more about their hopes and dreams for when they get back home; literally anything besides the wasted screen time of just staring at each other while showing limited emotional or realistic reactions to the events around them.

What's worse, they not only stripped the characters of their personalities (and, honestly, the vine of it's personality in the book) but then shuffled them around for no discernible reason. It was done in a very forced way that didn't feel natural, especially when their fates and form of death were also mis-matched. In the book, the Greek is the one who breaks his back. This creates a haunting experience since we don't know what's wrong with him right away, because he can't speak English to tell the others how severely he is hurt. Extra unsettling is the fact that he cannot communicate with any of them to consent to having his legs amputated, creating a very squeamish and gut-wrenching chapter in the book. The film adaptation removes this horrific factor by making Matias the one to fall, they immediately figure out he broke his back, and then Matias begs the others to cut off his legs. That's only one example of many things that went wrong and caused this movie to fall completely flat. I won't even waste my time on explaining how disappointed I was that the vines were laughable at best, rather than the terrifying entity described in the book.

Lastly, the fact that Amy survives is an absolute joke. In the book, there are no survivors- a very chilling ending to a depressing story. The whole "we need a happy ending for the audience" was the final unrealistic bow slapped on top of this flop of a film. If they were going to choose to allow someone to survive, then they should have included the unreleased ending which was MUCH more haunting and realistic, showing how deadly and intrusive these vines are.

Overall, I'm disappointed in Ben Stiller and Scott Smith for failing to create a movie that even suggests a proper attempt of doing the book any justice. Translating a far-fetched idea onto the big screen is something that cannot be skimped on. You had the money to do it and do it right, but this was not it.