This was an incredibly frustrating movie. Not because it was bad, but because it was lazy. I didn’t expect much from a company that primarily focuses on short videos for the internet and yet I still found myself being let down. I understand that I am not the target audience, but that won’t stop me from criticizing whatever you want to call this. Rooster Teeth makes content for fans of Rooster teeth. This creates clear limitations to the narrative they can tell because the movie will stop multiple times to add poorly placed, pace-stopping fan service. These desperate attempts come in the form of cameos and jokes that add little to the movie. And maybe that is the point but if you are not a fan of Rooster Teeth or are familiar with any of its content creators, it is alienating.
The movie plays like a bad parody. The main characters traverse through this dystopian Disneyland of horror movie tropes without dying. It honestly feels like a series that is connected by terrible dubstep and rooster teeth reference. It might have been better as a web series and it would eliminate all the unnecessary fluff used to pad the movie. Anytime this movie starts to build any tension, it stops to make a dumb joke that never lands.
This movie is very monotone. The meta nature of the movie doesn’t leave any wiggle room for storytelling and instead, you get a lot of bad references to better movies. The over the top acting might be good for a web series, but it overstays its welcome. It is sad because the actors show that they can be charismatic and likable at points, but that charisma is wasted on the terrible writing.
Ultimately, this movie is generic. I knew how the movie was going to end within the first minutes of the movie. I knew where each scene was going to go. My issue isn’t that the movie is bad, I have seen worse, it is that it is boring. You move from parody to parody waiting for the obvious jokes until you get to the obvious twist and it is a huge letdown. There are a few ways this could have been done better but I don’t want to spoil the movie in that regard.
This movie wasn’t made for me. If you aren’t a 13-year-old or a fan of Rooster Teeth fan, this movie is going to be boring. I am disappointed and frustrated that I wasted so much time on an incredibly lazy movie.