A figyelők

Maybe something interesting could be made out of the mythological motif, but as it stands, it's unfortunately completely moronic. There's a moment where two characters argue about whether it's the lost husband or a monstrous shapeshifter banging on their door, with the character who wants to open the door responding to the well-meaning advice to first ask the banging subject some question that only the husband knows the answer to with a – no kidding – confused "Why?". This is just one of many times I raised my eyebrows in surprise, thinking that I must be missing some level of humour that the film is riding on. Because no one would seriously write that, would they? The second favourite moment occurs when the characters find a plethora of documentation that could quite obviously give them a clue as to what is really going on and how to get out of there, and one of them boredly turns around and utters something along the lines of "well, we don't have to see this". (2024.07.02)

To my surprise, this actually turned out okay. Shyamalan's daughter definitely beats Cronenberg's daughter. Visually, the film is on par, I liked the mythology around the guardians. The first encounter with them has a great mysterious atmosphere and visually it is properly engaging in short nicely photographed creatures. The film also offers some interesting twists – the one at the end got me quite a bit. It held my attention and that's what counts. It's more of a mystery horror tale than proper horror, and there are quite a few horror sequences, but I found the idea as a whole to be fine and imaginative, so I'm happy to give it 4 stars. 7/10. (2024.06.30)