Speak Now Storyteller

Summary: When a nurse downloads an app that claims to predict the moment a person will die; it tells her she only has three days to live. With the clock ticking and a figure haunting her, she must find a way to save her life before time runs out.

Pros: 

Entertaining. This movie is entertaining for the most part. It’s nothing grand but I had fun watching it and trying to figure out how the characters were going to figure out how to cheat death. The way it ends indicates a sequel, so welcome to the new Final Destination series if it gets a sequel and does well. I don’t remember if this movie did well in the theaters or not. But the scares of fun, silly but fun. The tension is handled well, the two main characters are fine and while I don’t care about some of the other side plots, I was a bit interested in the main character’s backgrounds. So, there’s that lol. But I wanted to see it because I like Jordan Calloway… so… worth it lol.

Cool Premise. Honestly, I think the idea is cool, not executed that well but it’s cool. An app can predict when you die then you mysteriously die. It’s basically Final Destination just with an app instead of premonitions and all that jazz that goes into those movies. If you “break the user agreement” as it likes to scream at you, then you’ll die in a different instead of how you meant too. This happens at the beginning and at the end as well.

Interesting Tension. This movie does okay with creating tension. It’s not that scary, I only jumped once but as always there are usual tropes in “horror” movies that prepare you for a jump scare or something. This movie does that too, but I think outside of that, it does okay with creating tension and you’re not quite sure what someone might do or what might happen. It didn’t at least assault me with music or sound before trying to scare me that much. The best part was the part in the hospital with the mirror and then the sequence in the bathroom with Michael. That was great. We needed more of that. Let the horror sit, you don’t have to prepare us, we’ll like it more (or be scared) if you let it sit.

Cons:

Typical Stupid Characters. Obviously if you’re being targeted by something that’s trying to kill you, why would you be stupid and react to something that’s clearly an apparition? I was really upset at Jordan Calloway’s character for being stupid and not leaving the bathroom when he heard the creepy laughing or touching that little toy. I mean for real bro? Not to mention, why would you even download an app to see when you’d die? I’m a curious person but even my curiosity won’t make me download an app like that. If God wanted me to know when I was meant to die, he’d tell me lol. Plus, the characters were okay, I think they could have been written better.

The Actual Scares. I think there was one that made me jump and it was the one in the hospital with the mirror. I knew it was gonna happen, but it still startled me. It was the only one that got me, everything else while built up well, either looked silly or it was cut out by the overbearing music.

Execution. While the premise is interesting, it’s not executed that well. I think there’s so much potential here, yes, it’s like Final Destination but it’s for a new audience and generation and it could work well. The whole “user agreement” thing, does not accepting that prevent your fate? What if you download it but then never do anything with it? There are too many questions. Also, is the entity that’s killing them showing them visions of people they might have been responsible for hurting/killing to make them more scared? (It, Supernatural and Escape Room) It just feels like other movies packed into one with an interesting premise but because it’s not really adding anything new it feels old. Plus, I want to know more about Michael and his brother, I wish we would have got to see a lot more of with him.

Subplot in the Hospital. I don’t want to give too much away in case you want to watch this lol but there’s this entire thing with Beck, I mean Quinn (Elizabeth Lail) where this guy is a creeper and it’s this whole thing and I just did not care. I get it because you wanted to show he’s a scumbag so when they do their plan at the end, you don’t feel bad but who cares? If you took that entire subplot out of the film, it will not take anything away. If you wanted to do a showcase of real-life issues with women, cool but it didn’t work for me, it felt shoehorned.

Overall, I enjoyed myself to be honest. I mean, I don’t think the movie is horrible, it’s okay but it’s not quite good either. Maybe if I was more of a horror fan, I would have disliked it more. But since I don’t watch horror often it didn’t bother me that much? lol I don’t know. I know the acting was fine, the tension was handled well particularly the bathroom sequence and the premise is interesting, but it’s bogged down by the typical stupid character trope, the characters are also not that interesting. They have bits and pieces but overall, meh. The subplot in the hospital with Quinn and that man was just unnecessary filler, I get it, but I didn’t need it. Lastly, the actual scares were lame. The tension was pretty good, and it sucked that the scares didn’t deliver.

Rating: 2.9 out of 5 stars. 

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