Review of Preservation (2014) by Alex M — 12 Mar 2017

What starts off promising quickly becomes a standard survival movie. It's not a horror movie at all. A very nice looking movie with decent acting makes it watchable. The writing sort of derails at the halfway mark of the film. The most interesting character is the military veteran who is teaching his brother and sister-in law about hunting and the relationship between prey/predator. Too bad (SPOILER) he is the first one killed off. It almost felt like a cheap trick by the writer to get the audience invested in the character most "likely to survive", only to be the first to die.

And I can't even go into how poorly the husband was badly written. It made no sense why this girl, Wit would continue to be married to such a blowhard workaholic. One who has absolutely no sense of what is best for her. And his ideas for survival in the movie were laughable. Also, he's so quick to blame his veteran brother and his supposed PTSD for the misfortune they go through. What a total dickhead.

The one thing the movie does well is hold out the twist of the movie. I sorta guessed early on what the identity of the antagonists would be...but the way its revealed is incredibly well done. The director humanizes the antagonists (one of them being asthmatic) which was a nice surprise, after making us scared of them with their masks and quiet brute force.

But shortly after the reveal is announced, the intimidation behind the antagonists goes away. They suddenly become less imposing, and their strength completely disappears, making them look like clowns. Perhaps this was done so that the girl could have a more leveled playing field as she fights them, but it was noticeable and jarring.

I liked it for what it was, but it could've been better. I liked the concept of the silent masked killers the best. It was very effective and kept me watching to the end.