Take Back the Night (2021)
syndromezed 1 points 2 years ago. (Contains Spoilers)

This is the kind of movie that could have been good - taking a metaphorical monster (sexual assault/violence against women d/t their gender) and making it a “real” monster. Having a protagonist that may or may not be imagining things is a good idea, since RL sexual assault cases are usually defended by attacking the victim’s credibility.

But they run into the problem of trying to have it both ways - the monster is portrayed as maybe a mentally ill homeless man (it first appears in an alley in a mess that looks like someone’s makeshift shelter), but also a monster. It can only be killed (supposedly) by magical means, but if that’s true we’re not really dealing with a metaphorical monster anymore at all. I think maybe that’s another way of saying it can’t be killed, but that just muddies things up more. Everything about the monster - including the way it kills the one person I can remember actually dying in the movie - suggests it could be her having a psychotic break and that the monster isn’t real, but everything around the monster says it’s real. Not a bad premise for a movie, but confusingly executed.