I'd like to sue for false advertisement. The trailers for this movie truly misled me. I was under the impression this was going to be a horror movie with supernatural occurrences. In the trailer the scenes jumped from present day to antebellum era, then there was a scene of a plane suddenly appearing in the sky above a slave plantation as if they were in a parallel universe where slavery lasted past the industrial age. There was a flash scene of a woman bending over backwards like she was an evil spirit. The whole of it painted a very eerie picture with otherworldly undertones.
The movie wasn't nearly as mystical or creepy. Basically, a group of butt-hurt southerners created a fake plantation in the middle of nowhere where they'd kidnapped Black people and forced them to live as slaves. This premise has so many flaws, but we'll overlook those for now.
The movie begins on this plantation with no indication that it's anything other than an antebellum plantation in the South. After awhile you get the sense that something is not quite right. The manner in which the "slaves" are speaking is very anachronistic. Their diction is too good and even some of their vocabulary doesn't belong. One "slave" even uses the term "cracker," which completely didn't belong. That same Black man stared down the overseer when he spoke to him, which would never happen during slavery times unless the slave had a death wish.
I simply thought that the writer of the script was clueless about slavery which just upset me. I didn't recognize those anachronisms as intentional clues because they were subtle and they weren't highlighted like important clues normally are. When the main character, Veronica (Janelle Monae), woke up in a modern-day bed in her home it only further confused me. It wasn't shown as a flashback, it was shown as though Veronica just woke up from a bad dream in which she was a slave.
The movie continued on with some exposition where we got to know what Veronica was all about. The exposition carried on too long to the point I thought we were completely done with the slavery scenes and we were just going to watch Veronica be with her friends. The present day scenes were so boring and irrelevant I was ready to quit the movie. Precious movie time was being eaten up and I had yet to see anything remotely scary or even eerie.
The movie wraps up with Veronica back on the plantation making her getaway. That's when we find out the "big reveal," the plantation is a modern day replica in the backwoods of Louisiana. Veronica had to fight her way to freedom which included burning two men alive. It was supposed to be a liberating scene, but all I could think of was, "Don't waste your time burning them, just get out of there."
On her way out of the nightmare she was in she passed by a statue of Robert E. Lee. The statue standing there so regal and reverential at the edge of the fake plantation was clear in its meaning. It was to illustrate that monuments of confederates are only memorializing the atrocities of the South. I understood the point of this movie, but boy did they take a long yawn inducing route to it.
The movie wasn't nearly as mystical or creepy. Basically, a group of butt-hurt southerners created a fake plantation in the middle of nowhere where they'd kidnapped Black people and forced them to live as slaves. This premise has so many flaws, but we'll overlook those for now.
The movie begins on this plantation with no indication that it's anything other than an antebellum plantation in the South. After awhile you get the sense that something is not quite right. The manner in which the "slaves" are speaking is very anachronistic. Their diction is too good and even some of their vocabulary doesn't belong. One "slave" even uses the term "cracker," which completely didn't belong. That same Black man stared down the overseer when he spoke to him, which would never happen during slavery times unless the slave had a death wish.
I simply thought that the writer of the script was clueless about slavery which just upset me. I didn't recognize those anachronisms as intentional clues because they were subtle and they weren't highlighted like important clues normally are. When the main character, Veronica (Janelle Monae), woke up in a modern-day bed in her home it only further confused me. It wasn't shown as a flashback, it was shown as though Veronica just woke up from a bad dream in which she was a slave.
The movie continued on with some exposition where we got to know what Veronica was all about. The exposition carried on too long to the point I thought we were completely done with the slavery scenes and we were just going to watch Veronica be with her friends. The present day scenes were so boring and irrelevant I was ready to quit the movie. Precious movie time was being eaten up and I had yet to see anything remotely scary or even eerie.
The movie wraps up with Veronica back on the plantation making her getaway. That's when we find out the "big reveal," the plantation is a modern day replica in the backwoods of Louisiana. Veronica had to fight her way to freedom which included burning two men alive. It was supposed to be a liberating scene, but all I could think of was, "Don't waste your time burning them, just get out of there."
On her way out of the nightmare she was in she passed by a statue of Robert E. Lee. The statue standing there so regal and reverential at the edge of the fake plantation was clear in its meaning. It was to illustrate that monuments of confederates are only memorializing the atrocities of the South. I understood the point of this movie, but boy did they take a long yawn inducing route to it.