Nicole (2020) by James Schroeder


Director: James Schroeder
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: N/A

Plot:
Agreeing to a date together, a woman and a man meet up and decide to head back to her place following their night out, only to turn into a series of unfortunate incidents between them to put a damper on the night and bring out a side to each other they never knew was possible on a first date.

Review:

There's so little to like about this one, especially if you're a genre fan. So little of what happens here even remotely qualifies as a genre effort as the majority of the film is concerned with her unchecked alcoholism sneaking drinks at work or on the date or just meeting his skeevy personality with his random hookups that nothing of any interest happens. Nothing really works here, and even the date itself is barely worthwhile with the film following two uninteresting people as she's interesting in pounding drinks as he tends to try every trick in the book to get in her pants which is pretty much all that we know about them so they're barely worth following around or caring about. This overwhelming blandness and lack of anything macabre or terrifying happening makes the horror feature quite false.

The other false notice here is that the comedic qualities are grossly exaggerated. Nothing is funny about her, a joyless introspective loner who keeps to herself and doesn't speak to anyone around her and sneaking drinks at work. He spends the entire time telling mysogynist-laden jokes about trying to get laid only to brush off the dirty looks he gets back as a result as simply a joke which isn't funny in the first place. The culmination of these factors in how the date ends attempts to provide both of these elements but neither one makes an impact as it's merely way too late to get anything out of these actions which just don't work at all here. Had the horror side been shown to be more of a frequent occurrence instead of a flustered accident as is depicted here, it might be a little more worthwhile but it's not a big deal.

Overview: 0.5/5
Not in the slightest bit a genre effort but grossly mismarketed as one, this is neither terrifying or comedic in any sense and doesn't really qualify as either labeled genre. If either or those tags drew you t o see this one you're going to be sorely disappointed as neither one is accurate, while all others have little need to see this one.

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