Review of What Keeps You Alive (2018) by Nobodyyouknow — 09 Jun 2019

Jules is *not* a crow. The movie makes a big to-do about Jules being a crow and Jackie/Megan being an eagle (rather unsubtle metaphor). Jules points out that crows are the smartest birds, and she thinks so highly of them, she has a crow tattoo. Sadly, Jules make dumb choice after dumb choice -- just too many stupid choices to be believable (an actual *crow* would be better at keeping itself safe). Oh, and she's apparently Wonder Woman: she somehow survived TWO separate falls from a 100-foot cliff.

We learn early on that Jackie is actually Megan, and shortly after that, we learn that Jackie/Megan is a psycho killer, literally. It's a fun surprise when it happens, but the plot deteriorates quickly into, well, a series of stupid choices by Jules. I eventually found myself groaning out loud. The scene where the neighbors get killed actually pissed me off -- it would've been *really* easy for Jules to handle that in a way that didn't freak out Sarah and lead to Sarah's and her husband's deaths. The twist -- presumably showing how smart Jules was -- wasn't nearly good enough to redeem the rest of the contrivance-via-Jules-dumb-decisions.

What boosted this to a middling 5 for me was that the production values were good. Cinematography, direction, and acting were all professional enough. Script/plot just didn't work for me. But if you don't care about realism and are only looking for a well-produced pulp horror/thriller, this'll do.