By means of Jonathan Klotz
| PUBLISHED
Most first-time directors don’t start with a successful film that makes twice its budget and then becomes a streaming hit, but then again, most first-time directors aren’t Zoe Kravitz. The actress wrote and directed the thriller Blink Twicewhich opened last year in theaters and shocked audiences by casting Channing Tatum as a villain. The hunk’s typical dopey “Aw shucks” personality has been replaced by his sinister turn as a tech mogul to the point of bad.
Billionaire’s Private Island Won’t End Well
Blink Twice centers on Frida (played by Naomi Ackie, star of the future Mickey 17), a waitress who is persuaded to go for a weekend on the private island of the billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), who, of course, is very handsome and charming, but there is a sleaze under the carefully made that facade, unlike any other role in Tatum’s career. Joining the pair are Slater’s friends, which include Tom (Haley Joel Osment), Cody (Simon Rex), and Stan (Christian Slater), and other women, including Frida’s friend, Jess (Alia Shawkat from Last Girls), and Sarah, a reality star (Good Signs’ Adria Arjona). What started out as scenes of partying, drinking, and lounging by the pool soon changed.
One morning, Frida realized that Jess was gone, and no one else on the island remembered that she was there. Although it plays with familiar horror tropes, the film’s exotic setting puts even the audience at ease in the setting of euphoria before all hell breaks loose. Blink Twice It’s slow to reveal what’s happening to the island guests, but once it starts the third act, it’s fully on its way to the end.
A Future Cult Classic
In interviews, Zoe Kravitz explained that he started working on the first draft of the film back in 2017 and it has been his passion for many years. Blink Twice his vision comes to life, and while there are a few stumbles, and as far as the film goes in its plot, it still feels restrained. None of the characters feel like they’re fully fleshed out, and each can be summed up in a few words, but whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is completely subjective and based on how do you like your horror.
What Kravitz pulls off is what most horror directors try to do, which is to take the anxiety of their time and present it through the lens of a horror story that turns fear and anxiety into something tangible. Blink Twice succeeds by taking varying degrees of the real fears of today’s society and tilting them slightly to create a future cult classic. So far, the film, which has made back double its production budget of $20 million in theaters, has had the remarkable success of getting critics and the public to agree on rotten tomatoeswith 75 percent and 71 percent freshness, respectively.
Blink Twice won’t get any fans because of the originality, and it may be rooted in current social trends to stay relevant, although unfortunately, it will probably be for a long time, but there are many horror films that released every year is more intense. . Zoe Kravitz has proven that she has talent behind the camera, and hopefully she will start work on another film soon. When it comes to Channing Tatumhe went from being typecast to proving that he can act in many different roles, so he just might surprise everyone again.
Blink Twice TODAY streaming on Amazon Prime.
