Movie Review: Most Horrible Things (2022)

Synopsis: A group of four men and two women who have never met are invited to a dinner party/social experiment on Valentine's Day and offered $10,000 if they complete the evening. The event, however, has sinister intentions and as tensions rise, turns violent.

The film is also known as Love Hurts. 

Who's in it? The movie stars Sean Sprawling, Simon Phillips, Sarah J. Butler, Natalie Burn and Sean Patrick Flanery


Review: My wife and I opted not to go out last night and instead celebrated the end of the work week with pizza and a movie. This one looked intriguing, so I decided to give it a try. After watching it, I guess the best way to describe it is I didn't hate it, but it seemed to lack something too.

To be honest, from the description and the opening scenes, I thought this would be a slasher movie/murder mystery. Instead, it ended up being more of a psychological thriller with an unusual host (Sprawling), his butler (Phillips) clearly trying to agitate their six guests for unknown motives.

This in itself probably would have worked. However, the movie jumps the gun by letting the cat out of the bag about what happens to the guests and that foreshadowing/telling the story via flashbacks ruined what would have been better as a total surprise. Even the surprise twist lost some of its umph thanks to a conversation between one of the guests and the butler early on. I saw it coming from a mile away.

Another thing that didn't help this film was the guests really weren't all that interesting. The main problem with insisting they remained anonymous was you weren't able to learn a whole lot about their backstories, just get little glimpses of some of them. This in turn made it hard to care about them. 

The ending also could have used a little work, mostly because a whole lot of things were left unexplained (such as the district attorney insisting the host not be investigated). I wasn't sure if the filmmakers were trying to set up a sequel or just decided to end it. Either way, it left us wanting.

Final Opinion: I liked the premise and think this could have been a memorable film. However, the decision to tell the story via flashbacks weakens the execution by revealing too many details too soon and making it somewhat predictable as a result. 

My Grade: C-

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