One theory about crime that I’ve latched onto is how criminal activity is driven by the need to feel in control.  Generally speaking, criminals want to control the things they lack.  For example, a wealthy person controls money.  When a person of limited means steals it, they obtain control over the other person’s money.  (I’m grossly oversimplifying “Control Balance theory”, by the way.  Search on it if you’d like to know more.)  Similarly, a person can effectively control another person through a variety of criminal behaviors, principle among them being physical assault and murder.  The latter examples came to mind while I watched Blink Twice, where the desire to control another person, both mentally and physically, explains what we see, if only superficially.

Before Blink Twice gets to that point, it effectively conceals what the crimes being committed actually are, how they are being committed and, most importantly, why.  It begins casually enough by introducing us to two cocktail waitresses, Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat) who are working at a black tie event for Slater King (Channing Tatum).  Frida is enthralled by Slater, which is understandable, given how he is handsome, charming and very rich.  After fulfilling their duties as servants, the two doff their work clothes for skimpy dresses and join the well-to-do guests.  As fine as they may look, they are immediately spotted by a member of Slater’s security detail and directed elsewhere.  Frida, however, is undeterred, and struts off to introduce herself to Slater.  Before she can do that, she slips spectacularly on the floor.  With all eyes on her, Slater comes to her rescue and helps her up.  From that moment on, Frida and Jess become unofficial members of Slater’s inner circle.

True to his enormously wealthy profile, Slater has a cadre of close friends surrounding him.  The casting behind those roles, where the hangers-on are played by recognizable actors, is particularly brilliant.  Kyle MacLachlan plays Rich, Slater’s therapist.  Christian Slater is Vic, a photographer.  Slater’s personal chef Cody is Simon Rex.  Haley Joel Osment, of The Sixth Sense, is a DJ.  Recent college graduate Lucas is played by Levon Hawke, the son of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman.  Geena Davis (!) plays Slater’s administrative assistant.  What’s clear is that Slater’s success eclipses every member of his inner circle by a wide margin, which explains why they hover around him like moths to a flame.

After Frida spends the remainder of the evening being charmed by Slater, he invites her and Jess to join him and the others vacationing on his private island.  Jess is concerned about jetting off with people they don’t know, but Frida insists.  Her rationale being that this is one of those “once in a lifetime” opportunities and they need to throw caution to the wind and just go with it.  Frida, like most everyday people, believes that someone who is rich and famous can be trusted simply because they are rich and famous.  It’s a common fallacy that has enabled those people to get away with all sorts of bad behavior in the real world, and I wished the movie had more to say about it than it actually does.

Based on what we see through Frida’s eyes, life on Slater’s island is quite grand.  All of the women are provided elegant outfits daily and are waited upon hand and foot.  Servants keep the champagne flowing throughout the day, which is primarily spent lounging around the pool.  At night, everyone feasts on Cody’s cooking while engaging in awkward conversation filled with tense exchanges.  Then everyone drops molly and acts crazily.  This cycle repeats itself for days, to the point where nobody knows what day it is anymore.  The social commentary here is that when you’re rich, time loses meaning.  This point, which is obvious, could have been made much more succinctly.

Before long, Frida notices things that she doesn’t remember happening.  A stain on her dress magically disappears when she awakens.  There’s dirt under her fingernails.  A huge kitchen knife falls from behind a mirror in her cabin.  At one point Frida encounters a member of the staff who milks snakes for their venom and shouts “red rabbit” at her repeatedly.  Come to think of it, all of the staff look at Frida as if they know something about her.  Then, one evening after Jess is bitten by a snake, she disappears and nobody remembers her but Frida.  Something very strange is happening, and it’s up to Frida to figure out what before she forgets Jess ever existed.

Blink Twice is one of those movies that instantly reminds you of other (better) movies while watching it.  It wants to exist in the same space as Get Out, which deftly used the horror of mind control as the delivery mechanism for biting social commentary.  As such, director-director Zoë Kravitz introduces a modicum of class dynamics to the story, with the message being that the rich view common folk as sources of entertainment.  The story also nods at the #MeToo movement, where bad-behaving, entitled white men preyed upon trusting women.  Unfortunately, the story never chooses to fully engage with either of those topics beyond paying lip service to them.  Instead, the movie spends too much observing the luxurious life of its male perpetrators before it gets bogged down explaining “the instrument” behind the evil those men do.  The movie then goes all-in on some particularly gruesome revenge theatrics, and whatever meaningful socio-political statements the movie originally tried to make are completely forgotten.  Finally, I found the explanation behind the villain’s actions too obtuse to be taken seriously.

In her debut outing as director, Kravitz tells the story with a notable panache and confidence.  She captures extravagance with visual flair and the closing brutality with the unflinching eye of a seasoned horror director.  However, the movie lags at times, even with its reasonable runtime of 1:42.  A movie like this needs to keep its foot on the gas, but Kravitz tends to allow scenes to go on a bit too long.  More judicious editing was needed to maintain the suspense.  As far as horror movies go, this is certainly one that is well made.  The overall craftsmanship behind the movie is remarkable as well, with Chanda Dancy’s unnerving score, Adam Newport-Berra’s crisp photography and Roberto Bonelli’s lavish production design.

Actors-turned-directors typically get exceptional performances from their cast, and Kravitz gets a wonderfully unnerving turn from her fiance, Channing Tatum.  He’s much more than arm candy here, and Kravitz leverages both his looks and understated boyish charm to great effect.  He’s playing against type here, but it works in his favor because he’s known for his good-guy, romantic roles.  Nobody would ever think that someone like Tatum possibly be evil, which is precisely the point.  Naomi Ackie is terrific as Frida, a naturally beautiful woman who is an  unashamed social climber.  With her soulful and friendly nature, she comes off here as a softer version of Angela Bassett.  The role is a perfect showcase for her acting abilities, far better than when she played (not) Lando Calrissian’s daughter in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Blink Twice is an entertaining detour into psychological horror, even though it curiously never says anything meaningful about the topics it introduces. Instead, it bides its time with entrees in the form of moody, eye-grabbing set pieces before delivering bloody revenge for dessert.  On the plus side, first-time director Zoë Kravitz frames the deviancy in visually arresting fashion, and the performances by Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum are worth the price of admission.  Mildly Recommended.

Forget-me-nots

I have no problem with Blink Twice revealing that the story is about mind controlling drugs.  Mind control is such a common plot device that I could come up with numerous examples in an hour.  It obviously was a key part of Get Out, the movie Blink Twice is trying the hardest to emulate.  It’s also the basis for The Stepford Wives, another likely influence.  And Don’t Worry Darling played in the mind control sandbox not even two years ago.

The problem I had with Blink Twice’s use of mind control is how the instrument of that control–  the perfume–works according to the needs of the plot.  Initially, the perfume only obliterates the victim’s memories that night.  Then, after Jess “awakens” and is killed, Slater gives a large enough dose of the perfume to guests Sarah, Camilla and Heather that they forget that Jess ever existed.  How much perfume is necessary to make them forget what transpired over at least a week’s time?

When Slater unknowingly inhales some perfume through his vaping stick, he immediately forgets how the dead people lying around his mansion were killed.  Why does it act so fast on him, but takes hours for the ladies?  Then, at the end of the movie, it appears that Frida has given so much perfume that he can’t even remember how to cut a steak.  The drug drives the plot, not the other way around.

Then there’s the matter of the snake venom antidote.  Sometimes it works instantly, as when Jess appears to be instantly awakened after being bitten.  The movie implies that she was killed later that night for remembering.  The movie also suggests that Frida begins to remember after a swig from the crazy cleaning woman’s flask of venom.  However, the instant effect of the venom is contradicted when Frida and Sarah spend the entire day getting Camilla, Heather and Stacy drunk on venum-infused tequila shots.  It’s only hours later when they snap out of their perfume-induced stupor..

I also had a hard time accepting that snake venom as a cure.  Why that particular snake?  Why is the old lady milking snakes for their venom?  And why does she keep it in a flask?  Do Slater’s staff need to drink it regularly so that they won’t forget to change the towels or mow the lawn?  It was awfully convenient that the cure just happens to be on the island, and that the caretaker is storing it just so that Frida and Sarah can use it on their friends.

This is why I stated above that the movie gets bogged down by the plot being driven by the randomness of perfume.  The rules that govern how the perfume works are whatever the plot requires at that moment.  Get Out, on the other hand, cleverly relies on hypnosis as its mind control apparatus.  There is no time limit on how long being under hypnosis can last, and the movie works much better because its plot device can’t be so easily picked apart for logical inconsistencies..

The use of drugs to make women docile and compliant was the mystery behind The Stepford Wives, another one of Blink Twice’s influences.  However, where the former was driven by the women being required to take a drug on a regular schedule, Blink Twice opts for contrivance.  Instead of being given a specific dosage at specific intervals, the women must apply the perfume themselves.  Do they forget things with only a light application?  If they spray on too much, do they forget an entire day?  Blink Twice would have been better off opting for a simpler, regular delivery mechanism.  Instead, the plot doesn’t hold up to scrutiny because its insidious drug works differently depending upon the situation.

The Lure of Wealth

One thread that Blink Twice introduces and subsequently ignores is how enamored and trusting everyday people are with handsome celebrities.  The reveal that Slater King is a predator wasn’t a surprise, given that the story alludes to his prior misconduct and subsequent apologies at the outset.  However, the movie should have explored why people like Frida, Jess and the other women are comfortable with celebrities in the first place.  Is it because they are in the public eye constantly, leading us to incorrectly believe that we “know them”?  Is it because we inherently trust people who are handsome and charming?  Along those lines, the movie implies Frida’s “interest” in Slater is what ultimately puts both her and Jess in danger.  A more daring movie would have addressed the notion of culpability head-on.  Should Frida “have known better”?  Did her social climbing behavior put her at fault?  Unfortunately, Blink Twice is more interested in letting the women exact gruesome revenge rather than asking tough questions, like how they got to that point in the first place.

About that control

Sometimes, trying to explain the inexplicable is an impossible task.  Blink Twice tries its best to explain why Slater developed a drug that allows his friends to rape and kill without worrying about witnesses, but the reasoning offered is convoluted a best.  Would a person who was traumatized as a child actually think that making it easier for others to do the same with impunity is a good idea?  If a movie is going to resort to twisted psychology to explain why everything that happened happened, it should at least make that explanation reasonable.  Unfortunately,  the movie doesn’t want to engage at that label, and instead offers the “damaged psyche” explanation instead.  While watching Tatum scream “I’m sorry!” repeatedly for at least a minute was gripping, his villain monologue doesn’t provide any real clues as to how he went from victim to victim enabler.  The movie would have been better off skipping the psychobabble and instead using money as Slater’s primary motivation.