There a few things wrong with this movie that have schlock elements that if they had been fixed or handled differently would have propelled this film to greatness. SPOILER ALERT:
1) First Issue is the accent music playing during certain violent scenes. It sounds kitchsy - almost like something Tarantino would think would be cool to play when it would have been far more effective minus these moments.
2) The audio separation from the 1st floor and the 2nd floor seemed hard to believe. Everything that went on on each floor seemed to be completely isolated in regards to audio. The inability for anyone to readily hear what's going on upstairs or downstairs on multiple occasions stretches believability.
3) I find it hard to believe the remaining cop didn't call for backup once his partner got shot from the car. This is difficult for me to get over.
4) The face burn at the end didn't seem quite to take as well as it should. This woman would have been in insane pain and probably unable to see period. Also the fact that her head didn't snap back from the flame is a bit weird - normal human reactions would be to snap your head back from the flame.
5) The "prisoner" in the cop car tags along via handcuffs and the cop gives the guy a gun? Also - considering a life/death situation - that would be gross negligence on the part of this cop to bring this arrested dude into this situation. Not too believable - the arrested guy is there simply to be another victim.
Besides all of these problems - I somewhat enjoyed this. I feel that if they had cleaned up a few of these issues - this movie could have gone from half schlock / half Funny Games to a full on serious movie. Unfortunately I had to suspend my belief on multiple occasions that ultimately left me with somewhat indifferent. Bleak ending is good though.
1) First Issue is the accent music playing during certain violent scenes. It sounds kitchsy - almost like something Tarantino would think would be cool to play when it would have been far more effective minus these moments.
2) The audio separation from the 1st floor and the 2nd floor seemed hard to believe. Everything that went on on each floor seemed to be completely isolated in regards to audio. The inability for anyone to readily hear what's going on upstairs or downstairs on multiple occasions stretches believability.
3) I find it hard to believe the remaining cop didn't call for backup once his partner got shot from the car. This is difficult for me to get over.
4) The face burn at the end didn't seem quite to take as well as it should. This woman would have been in insane pain and probably unable to see period. Also the fact that her head didn't snap back from the flame is a bit weird - normal human reactions would be to snap your head back from the flame.
5) The "prisoner" in the cop car tags along via handcuffs and the cop gives the guy a gun? Also - considering a life/death situation - that would be gross negligence on the part of this cop to bring this arrested dude into this situation. Not too believable - the arrested guy is there simply to be another victim.
Besides all of these problems - I somewhat enjoyed this. I feel that if they had cleaned up a few of these issues - this movie could have gone from half schlock / half Funny Games to a full on serious movie. Unfortunately I had to suspend my belief on multiple occasions that ultimately left me with somewhat indifferent. Bleak ending is good though.