MOVIE REVIEW: The Neon Demon

Nicholas Winding Refn brings us a strange tale centered around the Los Angeles Fashion scene. A young model comes to LA with big dreams and immediately has everyone falling over themselves to be part of creating her career. She makes a friend quickly in a Make Up Artist who pops up now and again to help her out, although she has a crush on her, and the industry does all it can to impress upon the girl who’s beauty is everything.

About an hour into this film I wanted to walk out, but to practice endurance of painful things, I managed to stay until the credits started. When I heard that I’ll be attending a screening of this film I remembered how many people told me it was a gory spectacle that has to be seen to be believed, and now I feel it has to be a large amount of cash, drugs, and alcohol for me to sit through this again.

Imagine Zoolander but without the jokes that are in that film. Imagine Twin Peaks but without any of the charm of character or a half way decent script. That is what you have here. The script feels as though it was written by a half awake teenager who didn’t really care about the final product. The acting is so horrid to me that it just made me cringe with most of the lines. Keanu Reeves must need the money badly to be in this, I can’t understand someone who has his gifts turning up in such a nothing part. Right now you are wondering why I’m giving this a one out of five instead of a zero. Well if it was not for the performance of Elle Fanning it would have gotten the zero and I would have walked out of the film. There are moments of strobe lighting effects that rather than help the film made me close my eyes for about five minutes, which honestly, was the best five minutes of the film, I even placed some ear plugs in and just sat there in isolation for that time. That was the only bliss I found.

Thankfully I didn’t pay to watch this as it’s tricky to insist on your money back from cinemas for a terrible film. Believe me that I’ve tried. Fanning aside there is little to nothing to tell you that you should spend your money on this when you could buy magic beans instead. At least with the beans there is a little bit of hope in the world.

The gore that you’ll hear talked about in this is nothing really, if you’ve seen a good horror movie over the last 100 years you’ll be better served watching it again. This is the type of artistic film that gets joked about and should not be seen by anyone anywhere. If you read this review and go see this film and like it, well we’re not going to be having Thanksgiving dinner any time soon, but that is also the reason that they don’t invite just one person to a press screening, we’re all different and we all take entertainment differently. But this is not entertainment, it’s a weak story dressed up to be edgy and was a waste of two hours of my life. Two hours that I could have spent doing something important like eating Ice Cream with a long spoon while trying to figure out jokes about the recent referendum in the United Kingdom. I cannot urge you enough to avoid this horrible and awful film which in parts offended every sense I have. I’m going to put the baseball bat down now and stop bashing this film.

I don’t like bashing movies, as I love movies, but this is just terrible and I feel a responsibility in reviewing that you’re spending money and time on something that I tell you about, so if my opinion means anything to you, and it should, then avoid this. Spend time chasing rodents under a bridge and you’ll get more enjoyment.