I’m going to guess that everyone has, at least once, clicked on a movie on a streaming service and had it not turn out to be what they were expecting.
Sometimes it’s for the better. Last summer I found an amazing hidden gem of a Halloween-themed movie called Lost Creek on Amazon Prime. I clicked on it thinking it would be as mediocre and silly as most of the other little known movies I try to watch based solely on the fact that they have the word “Halloween” in the title or a pumpkin somewhere in the poster, but it surprised me in the best way. I will write a full review of it one day (in short, I will say it’s required viewing if you’re a 90s kid who loved Are You Afraid Of The Dark?) but today I want to talk about a movie that I just watched that, sadly, surprised me in the opposite direction.
SPOILER WARNING: I will reveal the ending in this post!
Let me start off by saying, I went into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about it, but when you find a movie marketed to be about zombies in the horror section, and it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people, you do go in with a certain sort of expectation. I expected to see a movie about a man tearing through anything, human, zombie or otherwise, in the race to save his daughter from turning into a zombie herself. I honestly wasn’t expecting a whole lot of gore, but surely action would be on the menu, right? And a satisfying conclusion?
Sadly, no.
I have watched some bleak stuff in my time, horror and otherwise, but I’ll start this off by saying, no movie I’ve watched in a one time has actually depressed me as much as Maggie did, right from the very start. Honestly, the movie does what it sets out to do as far as creating a heartbreaking and hopeless atmosphere, I can say that much. Many times throughout the movie, I found myself near tears, which isn’t a bad thing. I like when movies create emotion, there’s little point if they don’t make you feel something, but this was just...not what I was expecting at all.
By the time we hit the halfway mark, it becomes pretty clear that this is not a horror movie, at least not in the traditional sense. I was starting to develop the same issue with Maggie that I’ve always had with The Walking Dead (and I know I’m in the minority with the latter, don’t @ me, it’s just a personal opinion I have): Too much about the people themselves, not enough actual horror for me. I am generally not a person who enjoys drama as a movie or TV genre, and Maggie is infinitely more drama than horror, or even action.
Still though, having invested so much time into the movie, and feeling the grim determination of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character throughout, I felt there had to be a solid climax coming. He was either going to find a cure or have to end the story on an even more depressing note by having to put his beloved daughter out of her misery himself, right? Both options were eluded to (though more so the latter) at different points throughout the movie. I had a feeling a happy ending was out of the question, just with the overall depressing tone of things.
But is there some amazing climax here? Even a depressing one?
No, not really.
The movie ends with Maggie throwing herself off the roof of her home, while thinking about her long-deceased mother. And that’s it.
I’m not going to say it was really a bad movie. It was emotional and poignant, and it is interesting to see the other side of the zombie apocalypse and what a person would go through while making a more gradual change, it just wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be, and I feel like nothing really happened over the course of the movie. It was literally just the last bits of a dying girl’s life, and when the movie was finally over, it occurred to me that this could very easily have been a Lifetime-esque movie about a girl with cancer or any other incurable disease. It was almost as if someone decided to try to make a “Fault In Our Stars” type movie for horror fans. And, personally, while I won’t deny enjoying the occasional chick flick, this just wasn’t my cup of tea. Not necessarily bad, just not what I was expecting and not what I felt like seeing tonight.
I suppose it’s worth a watch if you’re into zombie stuff, but be warned: It is not a horror movie and very easily could’ve been written about any other affliction.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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