Rating: 4/10
Genre: Thriller/Horror
Related Films: Strangers, You’re Next, Funny Games
By Leanne Harragan
Ashley arrives for another night of babysitting at the Lerners, when uninvited guests arrive and things take a turn for the worse; Ashley must defend herself and survive until the Lerners return.
I had seen nothing about this film coming out; it wasn’t until it randomly appeared on the Odeon app that I first heard about it. After watching the trailer I was a little bit excited, a mix between ‘Strangers’ and ‘Home Alone’, where could it go wrong. Sadly this film does not live up to expectations at all.
The plot is fine and would probably even work to some success if we had some actual character development. Every character introduced was in some way clichéd and lacked any development or even arc. No one learnt anything, no one was improved upon and no one was even given enough character traits or personality to make it believable.
I can understand what they were going for (sort of) and I appreciate the copycat-ting of ‘Home Alone’ which is a Christmas classic. I’m sure if the script/plot was even slightly changed a little bit or even given a bit of back story, it could have been a great, cutting commentary on self-entitlement and the “friendzone”, but sadly this was all unfulfilled.
I didn’t completely hate it, but I can’t say that I really enjoyed it either. It was a little too silly for me at times. The violence and gore was at times there and was a little gross. It is full of Christmas clichés, to name a few: Christmas carollers, Christmas lights and decorations, but this film could easily have been set at anytime and it really makes no difference that it is a Christmas based story. The acting was questionable at best, there were a few moments when it was solid and was credible, but for the most part it was poor, almost comical at times.
I will give kudos the ending which was the highlight of the film and is absolutely hilarious, (until they also ruined this with a poor post credit scene.)
I wouldn’t recommend catching this one; it is one of the poorest of the year in my opinion.
Rating : 3/10
By Rebecca Mannick
Firstly I will say that horror is definitely not my favourite genre. However this year I've seen more horrors than ever and its becoming more and more difficult to scare me. I had no expectations going into seeing 'Better Watch Out', I had not seen the trailer or any other reviews of it. All I knew what that its a horror at Christmas time. After seeing this film I absolutely hated it, would have said that it was the worst movie ever. But now thinking about it, the actual concept and idea of the movie was alright. It was the delivery of it that I hated and the low-key rip-off of Home Alone.
I feel like only Americans could make this trash fest of a film. For the first 20 minutes there were so many jump scares I couldn't even keep count. But to be fair I didn't see the twist coming. It was something that I haven't seen before. Aside from that I found it entirely cringey and really annoying. The Christmas element was only relevant to keep up with the Home Alone vibe, which was completely pointless. I would not recommend this film at all, honestly I really hated it. I don't want to give anything away in case you actually want to put yourself through this movie. But I never want to see or hear anything about this movie ever again.
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