MovieChat Forums > Alone (2020) Discussion > Formulaic but fine for a single watch

Formulaic but fine for a single watch


Premise: A woman is stalked and kidnapped by a random stranger intent on... something. Raping her? Cannabalizing her? Torturing her? Although the stalker's ultimate intentions are never clear, this otherwise sticks to the genre rules, i.e.

i. The stranger keeps coming across her on all these back roads of Oregon, despite the fact she deliberately takes different routes to avoid encountering him again and again. How is he finding her? How does he know that she won't turn off somewhere else when he is ahead of her?

ii. Cell phones are lost or damaged at inopportune times. Or reception is sketchy.

iii. 911 operators insist on asking for details before responding promptly to a curt call for distress.

iv. In a surprise move, the woman DOES NOT randomly trip and twist an ankle while fleeing her captor in the forest. Oh wait!... there it is. She jams a twig inches deep into her bare foot with the same result, i.e. she is forced to limp along.

v. The woman insists on running at night in a dark forest, thus ensuring the noise she makes, the mist of her breath, etc. gives the predator the means to track her. Why doesn't she just hunker down in the underbrush until he passes on? In fact, she does this very thing later in the movie anyway.

vi. Boneheaded decisions by the woman, e.g. she sneaks into the villain's car, grabs his cell phone... and then decides to make the call right there giving him time to return and find her.

vii. The villain is able to absorb huge amounts of punishment and and not pass out or die from extensive pain and/or damage. Here he takes four or five blows in a row to his skull and arms with a tire iron to no lasting effect.

vii. When she comes across a stranger who might help her, rather than giving him a clear, concise description of the situation, she babbles and screams in bursts, thus ensuring the stranger is confused and buying time for the villain to find them and re-capture her.

The only thing that somewhat redeems this is the passable acting.

reply

List of infuriating things...

1. She has ran into this guy several times, yet still decides to chill at a rest stop. A woman traveling alone, chilling at a rest stop, not during the day and not in the car. But in the middle of the freaking night, and outside on a bench. Even if your trip had been smooth sailing, you don't do that.

2. Has there ever been a smart good Samaritan in a horror movie, or just any movie? LOL! It's the same formula.. the killer catches up and pretends the victim is a patient, is sick, has some issues, etc. And the good Samaritan falls for it, or lets his guards down.

3. When she had the audacity to go for the killer's car, I kept saying.. check to see if key is in ignition before you get in. Of course she doesn't. Then when she grabbed the phone, I said.. did you lower the volume? I was surprised there was no cliché scenario where the phone rang. LOL!

Having said that, it was entertaining, and I like the ending where she exposed the husband to his wife. Even though it wasn't too smart. Because she was banking on the wife reporting her husband if she dies. If the wife is the only one who knows, the husband has a shot at talking her out of it.

reply