The Beast of Xmoor
My Review: No idea why this is the title. They’re actually referring to Exmoor, which is a real place. I guess they were making it hip and edgy. Anyway, this is the tale of two filmmakers who want to capture the legendary beast of Exmoor on film. It’s not that amazing of a beast, it could easily be real. It’s a panther that happens to live in Exmoor (which, if you didn’t catch on, is a moor), a place where a panther wouldn’t generally live, but I mean, there’s things to eat there. If you set a panther loose there, it’d be okay. So there could be one, and if you found it, it wouldn’t be like finding Bigfoot, it’d be like finding a lion that escaped the zoo. Not very magical, just sort of out of place.
But nonetheless, they want to film it! They hire a local hunter to help them find it, and hike into the moor after a couple of completely extraneous interludes with rapist hooligans and a crack addict (that was less extraneous - she claimed to have encountered the beast, so they interviewed her). Pretty quickly, they discover the body dump of a serial killer, just a big pile of dead bodies. It turns out the hunter knew about this, and was actually hoping to get to catch the serial killer. Why he needs the filmmakers, I don’t know.
So they stay the night, hoping to catch him coming back to visit his corpses, and he does show up (lucky catch!). A lot of silly things ensue. This movie is
ridiculous. I don’t even entirely know how to describe what’s wrong with it. The major thing is that the things the characters do never make even a little bit of sense. Like loudly shouting while you’re hiding in a tent next to a serial killer’s body dump. Lots of screaming and shouting. At one point, the girl finds the car of the killer and gets inside to check it out. She hears something in the back, and instead of being very quiet and careful, she loudly says “Hello? Is anybody there?” She
knows this car belongs to a
serial killer!! If this was how human beings functioned, we would have died out long ago. It’s just so illogical, stacked on more illogical things, that it’s like...
Okay, here’s the thing. I’m a total social outcast and introvert. I don’t interact with people. But most of the time, I watch movies and I still totally understand every character. Their motivations make sense, I can guess what they’ll do (within reason), I can understand the choices they make. People are people, I can relate to them as anyone can. But every so often I see a movie and I just can’t click with it. I feel like I can’t understand anything that’s happening because the characters are just alien. That is the case with this movie, but whereas with other movies it seems like they’re just a different kind of person that I don’t relate to, with this movie I think it’s different. I think the writer of this movie does
not understand how people act. I think he is completely clueless on basic human behavior. He’s the one with the social problems, not me! Not me I tell you!
P.S. The way the killer is beaten at the end is
hilarious. It looks like a scene from Benny Hill. It’s not worth watching the movie for, I’m just pointing out how bad the movie is.
My Rating: 1/5 Torn Pants (if you do watch this, check out how her clothes are ripped up towards the end. It doesn’t make any sense and is not remotely similar to what would actually happen. It’s like an anime outfit).
My Movie Idea: I have to admit, I got stuck on my idea this time. All I know is this: there’s a documentary filmmaking crew, and they end up kidnapped by their subjects, who then turn the documentary cameras on the filmmakers. It’s kind of an interesting plot, but it’s also kind of the same as half the found-footage movies out there. I couldn’t figure out what to do with it, but I also couldn’t let go of the basic premise enough to get a different idea. The details shall be left as an exercise for the reader.
