Twice the Horror

While not every horror movie is seeded with deeper meaning, the genre has a long history of social commentary. That subset of horror movie films is either being made more these days, or getting more attention; I'd heard about the recent movie Blink Twice, and wanted to check it out.

Frida is a nail artist and cocktail waitress who, along with her friend Jess, sneaks into an exclusive party being thrown by eccentric billionaire Slater King. When Frida has a chance encounter with him, and they hit it off, the two women are invited to his secluded island retreat. But once there, a darkness sets in. Strange flashes of... fear? memory? premonition?... seem to warn that terrible things are happening on the island, and that Frida may soon be fighting for her life.

This movie is the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz, who also co-wrote the script. She definitely set out to make a message movie, and the message is one very current in the zeitgeist: basically, that if a woman in a vulnerable situation were to choose between being with a random man or a bear, she should choose the bear. Billionaire Slater King is a perfectly charming "prince" for that message, with a perfectly just-hidden sinister undercurrent.

The movie has a very interesting way of playing with narrative. Strange flashes are inserted between scenes, or even in the middle of them. It takes time for you to recognize just what's happening, and longer still to realize exactly how they fit into the story. Without getting too specific, I'll just say that they're well-considered clues to a larger mystery -- and when the "solution" arrives, it does so with the satisfying feeling of a reveal that was fairly telegraphed at every step of the way.

However, the decision to keep things close to the vest permeates all aspects of the film. There's actually a rather large cast of characters here, as many whodunnit mysteries have. But the characters don't pop in the way a whodunnit requires -- they aren't eccentric, and often seem interchangeable. The movie is relying on performance more than anything else to make you not only care about anyone, but to even keep track of them.

So casting is key. The movie trades on the fact that you'll know the actors in the secondary roles from somewhere else: Alia Shawkat, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Haley Joel Osment, Genna Davis, Kyle McLachlan, and Adria Arjona. But it is anchored by two strong performances -- Naomi Ackie, walking a delicate line as Frida; and Channing Tatum, calibrating a balance of charm and menace, as Slater.

Blink Twice didn't blow me away -- perhaps because there have been a lot of good "message horror films" in the last decade. But it's a fun little suspense film that I'd say ranks a solid B.