Director: Gigi Saul Guerrero
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Living in a small-town barrio, a woman grows increasingly suspicious when a high roller moves into her neighborhood and starts offering outlandish prizes for bingo winners, but when everything points to his nefarious plans, she tries to alert her friends before it’s too late.
Review:
Overall, this was a massively enjoyable and likable feature. One of the more likable factors with this one is the gradual build-up and discovery of what’s actually going on in the town that drives everything forward. As we get an early look at the close-knit community, early on, with a look at how she keeps tabs on everyone around her, checking on them and their businesses, or offering a sympathetic ear to ensure there’s someone on their side, it all leads to a fine starting point of making her the unofficial leader for the locals. When the notices about the new bingo hall moving in and the skepticism she has towards the owner’s grandiose claims of life-changing money for the winners, the fact that this community in particular gets that kind of treatment sets her alarms ringing about the kind of macabre fate in store for everyone.
When it comes to the fantastic idea of the bingo hall opening up and becoming the center of the community, her early hints about its nefarious purposes are proven true as it exploits others and starts turning citizens against each other, offering up a lot to really like here. The hypnotic hold it has over everyone yields some striking, rather fun ideas. From the different winners being shown to have a dark outcome when their winnings give them the kind of opposite outcome to what they wanted in the best reversal of fortune possible in this kind of genre effort, seeing this kind of gruesome action in detail, from their body falling apart to scenes of the one victim getting ripped apart by a running car engine among others, setting up the fun confrontation in the end which leaves this with some strong factors here to have a lot to like.
There are a few slight drawbacks to this one that hold it down. The main detrimental factor here is the general sense of disarray that comes from trying to make sense of the bingo hall's overall purpose. The idea of the particular community receiving this type of program and getting these kinds of cash rewards doesn’t strike anyone but her as being the slightest bit odd, making this way too convenient without any kind of additional information on what the whole thing is about when they move into the neighborhood. Their powers and general demeanor are a mystery, being just evil for the sake of it, which feels unnecessary and underwhelming without much of an endgame, especially with how it just seems to escalate the prize winnings without much in the way of logical progression or even impact in the community, making it all feel even more underwhelming when it gets going. In the end, these are what end up bringing this one down.
Overview: ***.5/5
A rather fun and generally likable genre effort, that this one doesn’t have much in the way of genuine flaws makes this a rather fun genre effort that only has those factors holding it down. Give it a shot if you’re a fan of this kind of genre fare, if you’re curious about it, or are a fan of the creative crew, while most others out there might want to heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment