Parents' Guide to Old People

The setup is relatively novel, but this violent gorefest jumps on the silly train halfway in. The beginning of Old People sets it up to be quite promising, but too many frustrating elements keep this movie from being something worth watching. First, the film never articulates or says something beyond "society has forgotten its older population, thus this is their wrath." But this still formula doesn't give any humanity, agency, or power to older people, individually or as a group, and even further, dangerously demonizes them: "If you don't treat older people better, they'll kill you!" What's odd is that the sentiment is meant to be a lesson, but what kind of lesson is it exactly? What if the group of people in question were an ethnic group or a particular race of people? Then the message would be, "Please, treat this group of people better, or else they'll kill you!"

The film is also shot in such bad lighting that in 80% of the scenes it's literally too difficult to see what's going on. Also, the plot is formulaic, and nothing that happens is surprising or all that creative. But while the acting is commendable and earnestly given, the worst offense is the writing, which has characters often doing stupid things or making dumb decisions, which completely dissolves any suspension of disbelief. For instance, when Ella, safe inside a house and with others for protection, can't find her son, she thinks it smart to go outside (where all the murderous zombies are, and who have shown no ability to talk or understand anything) and scream, "Where is my son?" instead of simply staying in the house. Too many equally stupid decisions like this kill any connection to the characters one might still have by the end of the film.