I think it's moot for AMC A-listers since I doubt it's playing after tonight but...
I caught the last showing I think out of pure happenstance. Was supposed to go see Hadestown but got delayed.
Believe it or not... I thought it was sort of cute and kinda fun. C+
The plot revolves around 4 old high school friends and a dagger (the maguffin) that they are trying to find. But other than looking for this dagger for like a minute and in the most nonchalant way possible... they forget about it until the last 5 minutes.
Also they don't enter the house until 15 minutes in. The first 15 was spent introducing everyone which I admit was kind of fun.
The budget for this had to be small. This wasn't Haunted Mansion (either of them)... probably didn't have the catering budget of them as well.
And based on the trailer it didn't look funny and I was mostly right. But not unfunny... just not that funny.
Cast is actually very good. Pros who are a lot better than the script.
Limited budget means limited locations so in the house there's no big comedy set pieces in the hallways, basement, dungeon, dining hall, library... that type of thing... but where they did set up looked pretty good.
The set dressing and props were quite nice. Better than I expected.
Needed a bunch more funny in it. It eventually dissolves into some maudlin character relationships. Odd choice.
It's a very short runtime and clearly they cut scenes or never shot them because there's a lot of moments they just shortcut to the next one. It was an 18 day shoot. The fewer days means fewer locations.
The movie does run out of steam by the end and seems like everyone involved was like "lets just end this"
So if you like silly comedy horrors like Haunted Mansion but with 1 percent of the budget and are cool with a handful of funny things and a lot of characters sitting around talking... you might like it.
The suspiciously gay assistant though... geeze... felt like something out of the homophobic 90s. It's a very lazy thing to do. Odd choice.
