Thriller
By Jeffrey Anderson,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Promising (but gory) slasher flick falls apart, disappoints.
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Thriller
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What's the Story?
In THRILLER, a group of kids in South Central Los Angeles decides to play a prank on Chauncey, a kindhearted boy with a stutter. They lure him into an abandoned house and scare him with skull masks. In a state of panic, Chauncey pushes a girl from a second-story landing; she falls to her death. The friends agree to blame Chauncey for the crime, and he's locked away. Four years later, the friends are in high school, and it's homecoming weekend. As they prepare for the big game and the dance, Chauncey arrives back in the neighborhood. Soon after, a figure in a black hoodie starts killing everyone who was responsible for the prank. Who will survive homecoming night? Mykelti Williamson co-stars as a police detective; RZA plays the school principal, co-produced the film, and composed the music.
Is It Any Good?
This amateurish film feels like a bunch of loose ends, which is a shame, since a version of I Know What You Did Last Summer with a non-white cast in South Central Los Angeles sounds like a great idea. But Thriller fails to follow through on any of its themes. Even though it runs less than 90 minutes, it spends a lot of time developing characters and comes up with very little other than the usual high school cliches: the college-bound brain, the football star, the nerd, the celebrity-obsessed girl, the troublemaker, etc. The horror/thriller elements are handled poorly, seemingly inspired by the most bottom-of-the-barrel-slasher films.
Victims run, scream, and hide in the dumbest places, fail to turn around and look behind them, and even fall down while being chased. We even get the typical surprise "nightmare" scene (it was just a bad dream!). Weirdly, the dead girl's twin sister speaks in her voice while looking in the mirror, but nothing comes of it. Perhaps worse, the setting contributes virtually nothing to the story, aside from two little speeches -- one about having to act "hard" to survive in the streets and another about a young man's fate being predetermined by the color of his skin -- that go nowhere. The only thing Thriller really had going for it is sadly squandered in a totally forgettable movie, a surprise dud from Blumhouse and Netflix.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about Thriller's violence. Does it seem over the top, or necessary to the story? What's the impact of media violence on kids?
Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of scary movies?
How are drinking and pot smoking depicted? Are they glamorized? What are the consequences? Why does that matter?
What's the significance of having a non-white cast for a horror movie like this? What themes does the movie cover in regard to culture and/or race?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: April 14, 2019
- Cast: Jessica Allain, Tequan Richmond, Pepi Sonuga
- Director: Dallas Jackson
- Inclusion Information: Black directors, Black actors
- Studio: Netflix
- Genre: Thriller
- Run time: 87 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: October 8, 2022
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