watched this movie this weekend

i did not like it. i think they tried to inject too much into the movie.

there was a good concept and i enjoyed how the movie changed genres and tones as it went along, but the ride doesn't really hold up after reflection (unlike Kill List, which is fricking amazing)

***SPOILERS***

the "rules" and the stuff with the teens were too post-Scream, 90s/00s horror for me. they really needed to edit that out and get the story moving better. it would have saved some run-time, too. on a similar note, making "the empty man" into a semi-monster was lame in retrospect and, again, had lots of 90s/00s horror vibes. "the empty man" should have been the vessel alone and not some symbolic monster. an occultist death cult didn't need a monster to "suicide" teens.

i did like the overall themes/implications involving reality and duality (like, for instance, even the fact that he used to be an undercover cop brought up how he faked his outward nature in that role). i don't think that the reveal really worked within the context of the movie (especially how he interacted with other characters). the only way that makes sense is if they not only created the tulpa version of him, but if they created an entirely new reality that accepted and interacted with the tulpa (and then, him calling the gf and her not knowing who he was makes no sense. then add in the "affair" plotline that couldn't happen, and it becomes a jumbled mess)

clearly the director was getting into some pretty heavy philosophy, or at least trying to (naming the high school Jacques Deridda kind of made that point obvious), but he didn't go far enough...at least on first viewing. and he had a lot of stuff that clearly wasn't involved in the philosophy (teen murder stuff) that took away from it. it was jumbled and he needed a better, refined, and edited script to pull this off.

could have been an all-timer but it just failed in its ultimate form

***END SPOILERS***