Recovery

source: Recovery

The opening scene portends deeply disturbing notions by way of nasty, misogynist themes and violence. Thereafter the pacing is terribly slow - if we apply the model of conventional narrative structure, the "rising action" is mostly a flat plateau barely distinguishable from the "exposition," and more than half the runtime has eclipsed before it truly feels like the promised "horror-thriller" content is again showing up. This is rather troubling, but in addition: Is it just me? Did I have an abnormally unremarkable experience growing up in western Pennsylvania? Or are early scenes wholly unbelievable as the chief characters - high school students - drink alcohol and do drugs at massive parties, go out to clubs, apparently put all their personal information on social media, hang out with total strangers that they've only just met (online no less), and more? In fairness, once the narrative does very belatedly pick up, 'Recovery' is duly engaging and executed pretty well. The cast is solid, the production design and art direction are splendid, and even lighting is employed notably well. I very much enjoy Giona Ostinelli's robust original music that lends strongly to the mood of any given scene. Director Darrell Wheat illustrates fine capability, especially in the latter half, and there are swell if grisly ideas in his story and the screenplay written with Kyle Arrington. The blood and gore look great, and the brutal violence, and I appreciate the hair and makeup work generally. Truthfully, at its best this is really well done, and I appreciate the obvious hard work that everyone put into it. Would that the feature were a bit more mindful and balanced from the get-go. Half the runtime, about 40 minutes total, could probably be chopped up into only half its length without losing any substance. The excellence in the second half actually makes up a bit of ground for the weak start - a surprising "recovery," if you will. But the fact that there's anything to compensate for in the first place is an issue. When all is said and done this isn't half bad, and deserves a soft recommendation on account of its strengths. Bear in mind very necessary content warnings for not just significant violence, and specifically violence against women and associated themes that are all too real. Provided you don't mind when your horror-thriller entertainment is distinctly less than perfect, you could do a lot worse than 2016's 'Recovery.'

The plot of the movie was interesting but kinda basic the same time. Actually, that movie was about the dangers of technology. The characters were basic stupid teens. The storyline was just ok. The kills were nice. The location was so creepy. The plot twists were unpredictable but not so good. Anyway, it's not a bad movie, it's watchable. But, probably only once.. In my opinion, sometimes their decisions were so stupid, that probably some of them deserved to die.

Small spoiler* I actually thought the movie was really suspenseful. My heart was beating really fast the whole time, not sure what to expect next. Yes, there were obvious clues as to the last family member- definitely called that right away- and I will even give the movie the fact that they didn't call the police to help retrieve the phone, since it's realistic that someone would go home with a stranger from a club. I give special props for killing off a main character/love interest. It was definitely a solid movie with all of this, and then after the funny joke about still not finding the phone the movie should have ended, but instead you want to ruin the entire thing by saying that it's not over and the guy who was obviously killed was in fact still alive and managed to not only knock out the survivors by himself but also imprison everyone else. The quality movie was ruined because the writers took it one step too far with the ending so that it wasn't actually over and could even have a second movie. Awful thing to do.

Could not get through this. I tried but couldn't get past the dance club scene. The lead is sooooo bad! Just stands around rolling her eyes and acting so basic. I reserve one and two stars for cheesy cringey Christmas romance movies but I'd rather watch a week's worth of those instead of this tripe. Nothing redeeming about this! SKIP! SKIP! SKIP!

'Recovery' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing and quite creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive. It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws are here present in those films, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Recovery' is very weak, with a plethora of problems (fairly big ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There are however a couple of decent, even good, qualities in 'Recovery'. Lets start with the positives. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky, despite the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. Best thing about 'Recovery' is the opening, which was attention grabbing and kept me hooked. Which is why it is such a shame that 'Recovery' went downhill so drastically. Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their irritating and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates. Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the lumbering acting. Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace goes to a standstill after the promising opening and drags on forever, never recovering. The second half is interminable. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness and the lack of tension and suspense. A lot of 'Recovery' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending makes the film finish on an incomplete and confused whimper. There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, while the psychological elements are unimaginative and are more odd than scary, completely failing to show the horror of the subject. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is pretty leaden, got the sense their heart was not in it, and the music doesn't really fit. Concluding, very weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox

First we had Scream. And then more Scream movies. And then movies like Saw franchise upped the game. This movie is nowhere near either. Basically takes until the final credits to build up, and the description of the movie is far from accurate. I suppose if I got high, it might make more sense. From the very flat acting, where character depth was not drawn upon. The plot is flimsy at best. There is more suspense in one of Donald Trumps tweets. The hypersexual teenager that tries to pass with a sweet innocence, the acting is that terrible that it makes the Kardashians Oscar worthy. The pathetic use of technology that was used to prop up the whole film, that for a film in 2016 did not seem authentic. And I guess that's the issue with this film. There is no authenticity. In the horror franchise, the viewer expects a bit of gore. The viewer expects twists, a shock, a jump in the seat and the electric tingle as the protagonist gets what's coming. Jigsaw did this well. This film, well, did not. If this is collecting dust at the bottom of the 10 for $1 DVD bin, let it be.

But well done as far as production. I guess you just gotta run with it. Pretty good acting. Pretty unbelievable storyline. It's worth watching for a laugh.

Cliché as hell (but that's not really the problem, the story and beginning was OK to be set for a good disposable title.)... nothing new, bad scripting people that know how to scrip don't make the victim characters knock-out the enemies and have them walking away after which is what literally happens 2-3 times... after you down someone who's trying to kill you, bash their head with whatever you can find so they don't get up later and freaking kill you!(or at least bind them) besides that the mom character and Ed's girlfriend are pretty useless in the movie very bad usage of them, Miles was the typical ''funny'' guy and it works for the most part but later when things get rough he turns to be very dumb and his sister ends up being bad-ass she clearly one-shots Ed but for some reason when the movie could have just ended and it would've been kind of an OK disposable movie but the guy who was supposedly dead shows up and ruins everything. And what about the dad and his gear ? he's clearly not a doctor to live in that ***thole. The good things i find in this movie are the humour with the new age of internet it's enjoyable,Eds visual and his room and the first half of the movie that does a good job keeping you entertained with corny jokes and typical teen things, but again it falls when hell breaks loose on your protagonists and you start to notice many script/screenplay flaws. Directors have to stop making crappy movies like this with many plot holes and flaws this isn't the beginning of slasher/terror films like F13th or Halloween where people accept it because they're classics , don't get me wrong here but i love bad slasher movies and this was OK for me but anyone who's not like me and has a critical nature will have wasted their time ... i don't know how many bad movies of this genre i watched that have the same flaws and plot-holes like it's copying corny aspects of classics from 30 years ago, you can still make movies like this but without having clear holes/flaws that could have easily been taken out with a review, ''You're next'' is a clear example of that.

RECOVERY is a mindless indie horror film with zero redeeming qualities. This utter junk is about one of those 'find my phone' applications that you can get on a smartphone and sees it being used for nefarious purposes as it leads to a literal death house. This tame 'house of horrors' outing is a real dud and completely lifeless from beginning to end. The only surprise is that this was put out by Orion - the same Orion who released the wonderful ROBOCOP back in the day. For shame.