After Sundown (2023)

No logic, no cohesiveness, no brain… and I have no self respect for watching this.

When watching this movie, every new revelation made me ask one simple question “why?” - everything about the characters, their relationship and plot progression was so unnatural all I could do was laugh about the piling up cliches.

Alpha male with a soft heart and an innocent kid with a warm nature will give you a second hand embarrassment with every little ridiculous interaction and painful dialogues. Who needs decent writing when you can just throw poorly executed cliches at your audience?

And the ending? I don’t think I would manage to write something similar even on crack. What happened? How high were the characters? How high was the writer? It took me 30 minutes to finish the last 10 minutes. I kept pausing because my brain could not take this level of prolonged idiocy.

Acting wise… I think it’s time for me to leave the delulu land and admit Zee is not really a good actor, he is just good at delivering heart eyes. It truly pains me to say, since I basically wrote an essay about how amazing of an actor with great potential he has 4 years ago. On the other hand NuNew did quite well trying to deliver good performance even though the script made it an impossible task.

Overall, I regret watching it alone. I think this is a perfect title to group watch and joke about all the stuff that makes no sense. The movie truly invites you to rant your heart out.

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Movie missed the mark on many aspects, wish it would have taken a much darker road!

The premise of the story is relatively bonker but is very interesting as well. The way the two main leads are bounded together as well as the mystery could have made an amazing story. Unfortunately, it failed on a lot of aspects making it very difficult for me to connect and be invested in what was happening to the characters.

Acting-wise, I like a lot Zee and Nunew pairing. They are quite good in the more classical romantic moments and their chemistry is still very strong and believable. Sadly enough, I don't think they have the acting chops for some of the more "thrilling" scenes: they lacked quite a bit and it felt blank when it should have been super emotional or frightning. To be fair, they were really not helped by the scenario and the dialogs.

I enjoyed the soundtrack, there are really not a lot of songs but Nunew singing is always really beautiful and once again I truly enjoyed his voice in the movie. Regarding the filmmaking, it could have been much better. The horror factor is too limited, the overall vibe is not scary enough. The mansion is too luxurious and nice, it sets an atmosphere propice for the romance but it diminishes the fright the viewer might feel as the mystery unfolds. I wish they would have taken a very dark road rather than going for what felt as some very safe and run-of-the-mill filmmaking choices.

I would recommend this to people that are looking for a BL with some horrific elements. It could have been much scarier but it is at least different from usual BL stories. Scenario could as well have been better, the idea and concept is interesting (while a bit crazy in its starting point) but the way it develops and the ending felt flat. There are better BL movies out there but if you like Zee and Nunew, it might be worth your time to see them in a very different setting than their previous drama.

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