✧ Movie Review: (Haunting of) The Queen Mary (2023)

Hello and welcome back to Viago talks about a Movie for a while.
Once again; a very unprofessional review from an unserious critic.

There are slight spoilers but nothing that you couldn't find out by simply reading a summary of the film.

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Personally I don't think the movie deserves the current 4.2 rating it has or all the devastating reviews. Sure the movie has it's issues but there was also a lot that was positive about the film.

Starting with the eerie and in general very atmospheric aesthetic that movie has. The general picture was impressive and most shots were really eye-catching and just overall stylistically worth mentioning in my eyes. A lot of scenes were shot in a way that I haven't seen before in a horror movie, some parts like the hand reaching from the phone and the overall mix of the twin time-lines was something confusing for sure, but also really attention grabbing. The effects were gnarly and even though it was a proper blood bath it seemed very in character for the past story-line that was played out alongside the present one.

It wasn't a really horrifying film, some scenes did get you on the edge of your seat and you had a few spooks in there, but overall surely something for non-horror enthusiasts to also enjoy. Especially if you enjoy movies for their visuals.

The storyline itself was indeed something. It had great details and interesting twists and turns, but overall felt a bit wasted due to poor pacing. The plot itself was well thought through for sure, but the implementation was flawed.

The biggest issue I see people having with this film is it's seemingly never-ending run time. The way the film is stylistically separated in small action filled parts that may be confusing or make you question things and /then/ has the parts explaining motive and/or background to this specific part of action keeps you on your toes but also makes the movie feel longer than it truly is. And with something that already is a whooping two hours, having it feeling even longer is not a good look.

This strategy with separating action and explanation works really well for a lot of movies and truly does keep you focused on the film and what's happening not to miss any details that might be important for later explanations.

HOWEVER, with how the pacing in this particular movie is already not the best, and it's almost two hour runtime we are left clueless and in the dark for quite some time and only get an actual explanation for a lot of what is happening halfway through the 114 minutes.

By maybe shortening the runtime of the film and with a bit more to the point plot this movie could have dodged a lot of the bad reviews and opinions on it.

The somewhat lacking script also did not do the film any favours, I've also seen a lot of criticism about the blandness of the characters, but I personally thought it was not that bad. I enjoyed the characters superficiality fit quite well with what the movie wants to portray.

‘…Gary Shore’s well-upholstered film is more ghost story than horror, with twin narrative time-lines offering up something a little deeper than the usual jump-scares associated with the genre…’

Was one of my favourite sentences I found while looking what the general public had to say about the movie.

I personally actually liked it quite a lot. It was entertaining, had some eerie settings that might not have given me a spook in the way they wanted to but surely were unsettling, and even with the confusing storyline it was a good movie in my books.

I would recommend maybe looking into it if you are a fan of movies like this, i might be a bit more forgiving than other people criticising this movie, but I do think there's enough people out there that would surely enjoy this movie for what it is.

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In case anyone has watched the movie aswell I'd love to hear your opinion on it and if you agree or disagree with what I said about it.

My rambling has gotten out of hands again and it's turned into a much longer something than I imagined when i started writing it.