Entertainment
Audrey Hobert’s pop success is more than a lucky strike
Audrey Hobert isn’t clowning herself anymore. She was meant to be a pop star.
“I had been sitting on all of this music long enough that there was like a tiny man in my soul beating down the door of my soul,” Hobert, 26, said on a recent rainy morning at Swingers Diner in Hollywood.
This week, the L.A. native sets out on her Staircase to Stardom tour across North America, Europe and Australia. Intimate venues will see her perform from her debut album, “Who’s the Clown?,” released via RCA Records in August. She stops at the El Rey Theatre in the heart of Miracle Mile on Thursday, before performing the next day at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome for Jingle Ball.
Though the “Bowling alley” singer has “so immensely” enjoyed her whirlwind year, music wasn’t always in the cards. After graduating from New York University with a BFA in screenwriting in 2021, she fell into place behind the scenes, working in a Nickelodeon writers’ room for the since-canceled “The Really Loud House.”
Everything changed when she started penning tracks with childhood friend Gracie Abrams for the 2024 album “The Secret of Us.” Hobert signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Group soon after and participated in songwriter sessions for a few months before setting her sights on something more personal. Initially writing for herself, it became clear her confessional lyrics couldn’t be confined to her bedroom walls.
She teamed up with producer Ricky Gourmet to pin down the perfect level of bubblegum pop and determine when a song was in need of a good saxophone solo. Despite never being cast in a lead role during her “theater kid” tenure, Hobert’s music exudes main character energy. The first single she put out, “Sue me,” a high-voltage pop anthem about hooking up with an ex if only to feel wanted for a glimmer in time, reached No. 26 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay Chart. The music video accompanying the release — directed by Hobert, as all her videos are — introduced listeners to an artist not afraid to dance like nobody’s watching.
Even though she’s performed only a handful of shows, she already has a dedicated fan base at the ready to belt her most self-aware lyrics at her high-profile live shows — whether that be an expletive-laced chorus in “Sue me” or a line about a forgotten pizza pocket in “Sex and the city.”
Over French toast and black coffee, Hobert mused about the career she never saw coming.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Audrey Hobert fell for songwriting when she collaborated with Gracie Abrams on the latter’s “The Secret of Us.”
(Annie Noelker / For The Times)
As someone who likes to be at home in her creams and nightgown, how have you adapted to the life of an up-and-coming pop star?
I just still feel like a girl who likes to be in her creams and nightgown, and I also, in addition to that, really enjoy the feeling of working and sort of running on fumes. I think if you like that feeling too much, it dips into dangerous territory a little bit, but it doesn’t … feel much like partying. For instance, I’ve been shooting a music video for the past four days, and last night I was up until 3 in the morning with what we were referring to as the skeleton crew. It feels like I’m not even almost entirely there yet, and I will innately know, “Oh my God, I’ve arrived.” But you can sort of protect yourself from it if that’s what you want.
How are you feeling about performing in L.A.?
I think I’m gonna be incredibly nervous because it’s gonna be the majority of my friends and family there, and I’ve made the decision to keep all details of what the tour is gonna be a secret from all of my friends and family, just so that they can see it. I just feel like I’m going to get the best feedback from them if I’m not tipping them or giving them a hint as to what it’s going to be and if they’re just witnessing it for the first time. And that’s kind of what I’m interested [in] with this first tour, because it’s so short and it’s almost an underplay, and I just am wanting constructive criticism and what worked, what didn’t.
Do you get more nervous performing in front of friends and family?
Nervousness and excitement are the same. It’s a very similar feeling. I think it’s more excitement than nervousness. In my experience over the summer, going to places around the world and performing, I always was more excited for the shows that I knew I had people that I personally knew at. Performing in Australia and Amsterdam and Berlin, it was sort of a pressure’s off feeling.
How were the other shows?
It was such a great first crack at singing my songs to a crowd of people. I never really pictured myself as “girl with guitar on stage alone,” but it is how I wrote a lot of the songs. So it didn’t feel like I was cosplaying, necessarily, but I am also a theater kid, and my deep instinct is to be on my feet sans instruments for certain songs, and so I have no idea how it’s gonna feel. I did “Jimmy Fallon,” and that was sort of a taste, but it’s not what performing to a crowd full of people who like my music is gonna feel like. But it was really, really fun, and it did get me excited.
How does it feel to hear people singing your lyrics back already?
Pretty wild. I can think back to the writing of these songs, and remember so well how hard I worked on every single line, because I cared and because I knew that there was a best version of every line of every song. It was yesterday, someone asked me if I were nervous to perform my original writing, and I have been eager since the moment I wrote it, because I just worked hard. So when people sing my lyrics back to me, I’m like, “Damn right, yeah. Took me a while to figure out how to say that thing, and it was all in the hope that you’d be either alone gobsmacked or in this room with me wanting to scream it back at me.”
Audrey Hobert compares songwriting to entering “a third dimension.”
(Annie Noelker / For The Times)
In your song “Phoebe,” you open with, “I went to New York / ’Cause a man in a suit told me / You’re gonna be a star.” From a listener standpoint, it felt like “Sue me” dropped and everything took off. Can you tell me more about the process of writing and pitching?
I had just discovered that I like to write songs. It was simply that, and it was like a pastime. I had written all these songs with Gracie and signed a publishing deal as a result, and was sort of in this limbo of … I was a child who knew exactly what she wanted to do, and now I’m an adult and am technically a signed songwriter, but I have not spent any of my life wanting to be a songwriter, so I can’t imagine that this is the way my life is going to suddenly go, that I’m going to launch myself into a career that I haven’t wanted my whole life in the same way I wanted to be a television writer.
But at the same time, the way that it all unfolded felt so cosmic and I knew that songwriting felt very interesting. So as it all unfolded, I just never, for a second, questioned it or let myself feel even a stitch of imposter syndrome because I knew better. I knew that to hold myself back from whatever this journey was going to be would be me doing myself a huge disservice.
Gracie and I were living together at the time, and that was kind of in the thick of her intense touring. So she was gone. I was living on the Westside of L.A., which is not a very young area, and found myself sort of feeling like I was this Rapunzel type, living in this cement townhouse and very isolated. And I just started writing songs, and I found that it was like a third dimension, sort of “Twilight Zone”-style, that I could go to and exit my body entirely. Forget that I was maybe feeling a little bit lonely, forget that I missed my best friend, forget that I wanted a boyfriend and didn’t have one, and just write.
There’s nothing as mystical as songwriting to me, because it’s two kinds of writing — melodic writing that is completely unexplainable, and then lyrics, that is sort of the best puzzle. It’s like math, which I’m actually very bad at, but I can see a sentiment come together in my head before it actually does. It was just eight months basically of manic writing. And during that time is when I … told Universal Music Publishing, “I think I want to try an artist project.” It was sort of a way to get out of doing songwriting sessions, and then [I] met Ricky and knew that I didn’t want to spend all day, every day, making something with anybody else. It was just the purest, most greatest fun of my young life.
You said you woke up one day with the title of the album and the cover art, and you thought it was strange at first. Have you gained any more clarity on what that means?
I know that the cover specifically was born out of me sort of assuming that I would put this project together by myself. I just never considered that a label might get involved. And I thought, as a new artist, I’m going to have to intrigue people with the cover of this project, whatever it is. And I just felt like a white girl making pop music hasn’t done horrifying imagery. I just [wanted] to scare someone and to make someone go, “What kind of music is this?” And then you find out it’s just pop. That was the intention.
Take me to the release of “Sue me.” What was that moment like?
The date of the release got pushed back a few times, and every time it got pushed back, my heart broke a little bit. I just couldn’t wait. I was more eager than I’d ever been to do anything … and the second I put one song out, I felt just way more free.
In terms of the response to it, you just never know. You could have a great song and do everything right, and it just doesn’t work. It’s not like “Sue me” is a “Million Dollar Baby,” Tommy Richman-style viral hit, but it did catch fire and that felt great. Also, I had probably, by the time that “Sue me” came out, listened to it upwards of 800 times. So I wasn’t like, “People like the song.” I was like, “I love this song.”
How was the transition to writing songs about your own life?
It just didn’t feel like it was an active switch. Writing with Gracie was the same kind of bliss as it feels to write by myself, but it’s sweeter in a different way. It feels good in a different way because it’s totally shared. And one of my greatest joys in life is sharing in something with her. It always has been since I’ve known her, since we were kids. We never planned or thought we would collaborate in a greater way, because it felt like hanging out was a creative collaboration; I can’t really describe it. When I started writing by myself, it’s a bit more grueling, but then it’s the same sort of drug-like rush that you get when you feel like you’ve written a good line.
Your sound feels very nostalgic to me, but then there are lyrics like those in “Thirst Trap” that could only be from this digital era. You’ve said you didn’t have any direct references for this project, but are there any artists who have influenced your approach to songwriting?
I think that could become true for my next album, but I felt like I didn’t know the rules of songwriting. I always would listen to pop music and … was always asking myself, “Why is this the best song ever? Oh, it’s because this, this, this.” But when I wrote these songs, I remember having the active thought early on of, “There are no rules.” I have far too much of a slant, and it was so fresh and new that I have artists who I look up to in terms of songwriting, but it came all just from deep within me. I remember truly having the thought of, “I don’t know if this is classic, typical structure, I just know that this is what is keeping me interested. So I’m gonna just go with it.”
Your music videos are amazing. Is there a dream director you’d like to work with or do you want to direct every Audrey Hobert music video?
If you had asked me when I was going out to labels and pitching myself as an artist, I would have said I’d never work with a director. But the more I do them, obviously, the more I love to direct, but also the more that I would feel interested in being directed. I really, really like this guy Dan Streit, and we actually are using his camera for the music video that we just finished shooting. I just think he’s super cool, and he’s the only guy that I’ve ever been like, “Huh, I wonder if he’d ever direct one of my videos.”
Your video for “Thirst Trap” was inspired by the Japanese horror film “House.” You also reference “High School Musical 2.” What’s your taste in movies like? Do you have any comfort watches?
I’m just really into seeing movies all the time. I’ve been practicing keeping the social media apps off my phone and just tuning in to something. I had never seen a Robert Altman movie, and I just watched “The Player,” and I really enjoyed that. And comfort watches … “Frances Ha,” “Mistress America.” I just named two Greta Gerwigs, but I just love her as an actress. I mean, I love her as a director, but I really love her as an actress. And “House” was something that I just stumbled upon and then watched twice in a row. I love it. I feel like my taste is pretty eclectic.
Is fashion an important part of your artistic vision?
If you had asked me in fourth grade what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would probably say “fashion designer.” I always felt inspired by the clothes on the Disney Channel. I am interested, I do like it, but in order for me to feel comfortable going about the beginnings of this pop-star life, I need to be dressed in my own clothes or else I freak out. I just did a shoot for Vevo and I wore my own clothes, didn’t really spend much time on my appearance. I remember seeing the photos and being like, “Sometimes it’s worth it to just put in a little bit more of an effort, girl.” But that being said, I need to feel like myself.
Who was your Disney Channel fashion inspiration?
Selena Gomez. All the way.
Have you been writing more or are you taking a breather now that the album is out?
I’ve been thinking a lot about writer’s block and the concept of it, and I don’t know if it’s real, but the conclusion I’ve come to is I don’t have to worry about if I’m a writer or not, because I’ve felt like a writer my entire life. Some people swear by writing a song every day and finishing it, even if it’s bad. Some people take four years off from writing at all. How I feel this morning is when I have a song to write, I know I’m gonna write it. I try not to waste my time worrying about why I’m not writing all the time in the way I was when I wrote the album. And so I guess to answer the question, not really.
What’s been the most rewarding part of this experience? Does it all go back to [opening track] “I like to touch people”?
That’s very astute. Yeah, it’s the most exciting part of all of this. It is more exciting than the flashing lights of the L.A. Times photographer at Swingers Diner and it’s more exciting than someone who I respect following me on Instagram, and it reminds me why I’m doing it all. It’s the coolest thing of all time.
.
Is This Thing On?
Cinematic stories of disintegrating marriages are fairly commonplace—and often depressing emotional endurance tests, besides—so it’s interesting to see co-writer/director Bradley Cooper take this variation on the theme in a fresher direction. The unhappy couple in this place is Alex and Tess Novak (Will Arnett and Laura Dern), who decide matter-of-factly to separate. Then Alex impulsively decides to get up on stage at an open-mic comedy night, and starts turning their relationship issues into material. The premise would seem to suggest an uneven balance towards Alex’s perspective, but the script is just as interested in Tess—a former Olympic-level volleyball player who retired to focus on motherhood—searching for her own purpose. And the narrative takes a provocative twist when their individual sparks of renewed happiness lead them towards something resembling an affair with their own spouse. The screenplay faces a challenge common to movies about comedians in that Alex’s material, even once he’s supposed to be actively working on it, isn’t particularly good, and Cooper isn’t particularly restrained in his own supporting performance as the comic-relief buddy character (who is called “Balls,” if that provides any hints). Yet the two lead performances are terrific—particularly Dern, who nails complex facial expressions upon her first encounter with Alex’s act—as Cooper and company turn this narrative into an exploration of how it can seem that you’ve fallen out of love with your partner, when what you’ve really fallen out of love with is the rest of your life. Available Jan. 9 in theaters. (R)
JANUARY SPECIAL SCREENINGS
KRCL’s Music Meets Movies: Dig! XX @ Brewvies: As part of a farewell to Sundance, Brewvies/KRCL’s regular Music Meets Movies series presents the extended 20th anniversary edition of the 2004 Sundance documentary about the rivalry between the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre as they chart different music-biz paths. The screening takes place at Brewvies (677 S. 200 West) on Jan. 8 @ 7:30 p.m., $10 at the door or 2-for-1 with KRCL shirt. brewvies.com
Trent Harris weekend @ SLFS: Utah’s own Trent Harris has charted a singular course as an independent filmmaker, and you can catch two of his most (in)famous works at Salt Lake Film Society. In 1991’s Rubin & Ed, two mismatched souls—one an eccentric, isolated young man (Crispin Glover), the other a middle-aged financial scammer—wind up on a comedic road trip through the Utah desert; 1995’s Plan 10 from Outer Space turns Mormon theology into a crazy science-fiction parody. Get a double dose of uncut Trent Harris weirdness on Friday, Jan. 9, with Rubin & Ed at 7 p.m. and Plan 10 from Outer Space at 9 p.m. Tickets are $13.75 for each screening. slfs.org
Rob Reiner retrospective @ Brewvies Sunday Brunch: Last month’s tragic passing of actor/director Rob Reiner reminded people of his extraordinary work, particularly his first handful of features. Brewvies’ regular “Sunday Brunch” series showcases three of these films this month with This Is Spinal Tap (Jan. 11), The Princess Bride (Jan. 18) and Stand By Me (Jan. 25). All screenings are free with no reservations, on a first-come first-served basis, at noon each day. brewvies.com
David Lynch retrospective @ SLFS: It’s been a year since the passing of groundbreaking artist David Lynch, and Salt Lake Film Society’s Broadway Centre Cinemas marks the occasion with some of his greatest filmed work. In addition to theatrical features Eraserhead (Jan. 11), Inland Empire (Jan. 11), Mulholland Dr. (Jan. 12), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Jan. 14), Blue Velvet (Jan. 19) and Lost Highway (Jan. 19), you can experience the entirety of 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return on the big screen in two-episode blocs Jan. 16 – 18. The programming also includes the 2016 documentary David Lynch: The Art Life. slfs.org
Death by Numbers @ Utah Film Center: Directed by Kim A. Snyder (the 2025 Sundance feature documentary The Librarians), this 2024 Oscar-nominated documentary short focuses on Sam Fuentes, survivor of a school shooting who attempts to process her experience through poetry. This special screening features a live Q&A with Terri Gilfillan and Nancy Farrar-Halden of Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, with Zoom participation by Sam Fuentes. The screening on Wednesday, Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. at Utah Film Center (375 W. 400 North) is free with registration at the website.
Just down the street from Roc Nation, SiriusXM and Sony Music, Spotify is joining Hollywood’s Sycamore media district with a brand-new podcast studio facility.
The new, invitation-only space will be the company’s second studio location in Los Angeles and will cater mostly to video podcasts.
When Spotify moved into its campus in the Arts District in 2021, podcasting was primarily an audio experience, and the DTLA studios reflected that. But as the listening format began to evolve into a visual one, Roman Wasenmüller, Spotify’s vice president of podcast and video, said the company needed to revamp and expand its facilities to meet the growing demand.
The Arts District studios will remain open and focus on audio content while the new Hollywood location will provide a “video-first environment.” The nearly 11,000-square-foot space includes five different studio areas that can accommodate a variety of setups, including cozier interview settings and vast recording spaces for big groups. And unlike other rentable studios around L.A., the space will be staffed by Spotify employees, who can help produce the show.
“It was just clear to us that we need more facilities than we had before, but also at the same time, we just need to figure out what the right setup would be so that we can succeed in this new world of podcasting,” said Wasenmüller.
The Hollywood location will partially function as a homebase for the Ringer, an L.A.-based media brand focused on sports and pop culture. The company was founded by sportswriter Bill Simmons and was bought by Spotify in 2020.
Recently, Spotify announced that several of the Ringer’s video podcasts will start streaming on Netflix in early 2026. Shows like “The Rewatchables,” “Ringer-Verse” and “The Hottest Take” will soon be recorded at the new outpost.
These studios won’t be exclusive to the Ringer. Wasenmüller said the space provides the opportunity for creators of all kinds to host interviews and guests while they are in Los Angeles.
Traveling while podcasting has always been a challenge for Chris Williamson, the host of the self-improvement and philosophy podcast “Modern Wisdom.” The 37-year-old recalls struggling alongside his producer to make filming possible in various Airbnbs and warehouses.
“There’s been a number of times where I’m passing through L.A. and I’ve desperately needed a spot to record with someone. This new space would have been perfect. I would have made a lot of use of it,” said Williamson. “It’s just another indication that [Spotify is] putting their money where the priorities are. If I’m in town, I imagine that I’ll be dropping into [the studios] regularly.”
Williamson is a member of the Spotify Partner Program, which is also seeing a sizable expansion, as the platform continues to invest in the podcasting industry. The monetization program was launched last year, and it allows creators to directly monetize their content on the streaming platform with ads and revenue from video podcasts. Spaces like the new Spotify Sycamore Studios are also available exclusively to members of the Spotify Partner Program. Since its introduction, monthly podcast consumption on the platform has nearly doubled.
As a member of the program since it began, Williamson said he’s seen a significant increase in revenue, adding that he was able to make more than seven figures in 2025, with an average of six figures monthly.
“It was like a human centipede where Spotify paid us to put more video on Spotify, which meant that we got bigger on Spotify and that meant they paid us more money,” said Williamson. “It was this sort of self-reinforcing circuit, and it helped.”
Over the last five years, the company estimates that its investments in the podcast industry have generated more than $10 billion in revenue. There are nearly 7 million podcast titles available for streaming, with some of the company’s most popular shows including Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” and “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Though Spotify has continued to invest in podcasts, it has not been immune to volatility in the business. The company’s podcast division has previously undergone restructuring, including layoffs, cutting back shows and dissolving previously purchased production companies like Gimlet.
Founded in 2006, Spotify has become the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with over 713 million users. The streamer, based in Sweden, is available in more than 180 markets and has a library of over 100 million tracks and 350,000 audiobooks. Spotify shares closed at $571 on Tuesday, down 3.7%.
“Podcasts are now absolutely in main culture. When we started in podcasting, it was a very niche medium,” said Wasenmüller. “But now you look at where it is [today] and podcasting is a main medium across all big platforms like Netflix and YouTube. Even the [Golden] Globes are having a podcast category for the first time. There’s something big happening. To a certain extent, it’s the future of entertainment.”
Movie Reviews
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Home’ on Starz, a paranoid thriller where Pete Davidson gets trapped in a creepy retirement home
The Home (now streaming on Starz) pits Pete Davidson against the residents of a creepy retirement community, and it isn’t exactly a Millennials-vs.-Boomers clash for the ages. “Best generation, my f—in’ dick,” our headliner mutters under his breath at one point, and that’s an accurate representation of this quasi-horror movie’s level of articulation. Filmmaker James DeMonaco (director of the first three The Purge movies, writer of all of them) takes a halfway decent idea and turns it into an uninspired, vaguely brownish-colored movie version of the stew you make out of all the leftovers in the fridge, and that you can’t revive with just a little more salt.
THE HOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Hurricane Greta is about to slam into this community, and this movie would love you to come to the conclusion that it’s the result of the collective might of boomers’ farts after they ate too many Wagyu tenderloins basted in the metaphorical gravies wrung from the pores of younger generations. Maybe that’s why Max (Davidson) is so skinny, but it’s definitely why he’s so P.O.’d. He breaks into a building and expresses his angst via some elaborate graffiti art that gets him arrested – again. His foster father finagles a deal for him to avoid jail time by performing community service at the Green Meadows Retirement Home and that doesn’t seem too bad since he’ll be a janitor and not a nurse on diaper duty. And at this point it’s established that Max has some trauma stemming from his foster brother’s suicide, the type of trauma that’s requisite to pile atop any and all protagonists of crappo horror movies at this point in the 21st century.
It’s worth noting that Green Meadows is a halfway-decent retirement community – not as posh as the one in The Thursday Murder Club, and not as repugnant as you might expect for a low-rung horror flick. BUT. There’s always a BUT. He arrives at the home and looks up and sees peering out a window the face of a gaunt old man with eyes that ain’t quite right. I’m sure it’s nothing! Management gives him the nickel tour, and gives him the first rule of The Friday the 13th Murder Club: DON’T GO ON THE FOURTH FLOOR. And yes, that’s also the second rule of The Friday the 13th Murder Club. Max will stay in a room at the home so he can be available 24/7 in case the job requires a 2 a.m. mop-up, and also so he can have lucid dreams that may or may not actually be dreams about weird shit happening around these here parts.
But everything goes fine and Max quietly manages his trauma and nothing incredibly gross and/or violent happens and he lives happily ever after the end. No! Actually, he catches a glimpse of old people in bizarre masks having miserable sex, and hears horrible screams of agony coming from, yes, the fourth floor. Max seems to be getting along OK, and even makes a couple of friends, like Lou (John Glover), who summons Max to clean up a big mess of feces when it’s actually a little welcome party for the new super. Ha! Max also has conversations about Real Stuff with Norma (Mary Beth Peil), both sharing the pain of the people they’ve lost. Eventually the fourth floor misery noises get to be too much and Max picks the lock and investigates, and it’s full of wheelchair-bound elderlies in states of drooling, semi-comatose madness. After Max gets his hand slapped for violating the first/second rule, that’s when the bullshit ramps up. Let’s just say this bullshit has some Satanic vibes, and poor Norma doesn’t deserve what happens to her, although Max seems ready to do something about all this.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The Home is sub-Blumhouse drivel nominally referencing things like Rosemary’s Baby, Eyes Wide Shut, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in order to make it seem smarter than it is. Other recent scary movies set in nursing homes: The Manor, The Rule of Jenny Pen.
Performance Worth Watching: A moment of praise for the makeup and practical effects people, who provide The Home with more memorable elements than any of the cast performances.
Sex And Skin: A bit. Nothing extensive. But definitely unpleasant.
Our Take: In The Home, DeMarco tries a little bit of everything: flashbacks, dream-sequence fakeouts, jump scares, body horror, surveillance-tech POVs, occult gobbledygook, creepy sex, conspiracies, climate change dread, generational divide, paranoia, deepfake-ish dark-web weirdness… it goes on, and none of it is particularly compelling or original. It’s most effective in its grisly imagery, with a couple of memorable deaths that might tickle the cockles of horror connoisseurs, and DeMarco’s generous deployment of pus and eyeball gloop shows a variation on the usual bodily fluids that’s, well, I don’t know if “satisfying” is the right word, but at least we’re not drenched in the same ol’ blood and barf. Small victories, I guess.
Most will take issue with the casting of Davidson, who in the majority of his roles to date has yet to show the intensity that anchoring a thriller like The Home demands. He puts in some diligent effort in the role of the guy who routinely goes what the eff is going on around here?, and his work is a cut above merely cashing a paycheck, which isn’t to say he’s necessarily good. Miscast, maybe. The victim of half-assed writing, more likely, this being a paranoid creepout that never gets under our skin, with attempts at cheeky comedy that fizzle out and social commentary that dead-ends into obviousness. Having Davidson piss and moan about “F—ing boomers” ain’t enough.
The plot works its way through its hodgepodge of this ‘n’ that plot mechanisms to get to a conclusion that’ underwhelming and over the top at the same time; the initial bit of exhilaration quickly dissipates and we’re left with the sense that the movie just hasn’t been good or diligent enough in its storytelling and character development to earn this catharsis. It’s just spectacle for its own gory sake. This mediocrity might just inspire Davidson to retire from horror movies.
Our Call: Hate to say it, but 1.7 decent kills does not a horror movie make. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
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