Review: XX (2017)

Stars: Natalie Brown, Melanie Lynskey

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Numerous

Nice another anthology film I thought as I clicked on Netflix what a strange name though, then I read the description four shorts from women's point of view. I did also have some trepidation that it was magnet distributed but they do on occasion back some decent films.

Now these four movies are not without flaws, some of them downright puzzled me not in a how did that happen, more so the choices made and things not explained.
not that, that is a bad thing though,

Of the four stories the first story The Box and the third Don't Fall are by far the strongest of the four stories
told on this collection. Sun dance festival January 22nd 2017 was it's original debut then magnet released to video on demand services.

So these are all reasonably strong written pieces, some however have more than a few glaring flaws which I will go over when it's each segments time.

The first short The Box sees a mother on the subway with two excitable children after a long day out with them. It's close to Christmas so when her young son spots a man with a red present upon his lap he's quick to inquire what's in the box. After some badgering and his mum telling him off the man happily shows him what's inside, only the boy see's and he goes very somber afterwards.

That night at dinner the boy doesn't feel hungry the parents are fine but a little concerned he might be getting ill. That is until 3 or 4 days later the father starts getting very worried, yet the boy says he's fine.
They take him to a doctor who believes it to be a traumatizing effect that has made him this way. When the mother spots the son telling the daughter something in a whisper she gets concerned. Sure enough the girl stops eating to, it quickly passes to the dad too.

In a bizarre dream sequence we see them eating parts of the mother then, but it's not real. They even have a nice Xmas but everyone apart from the mother is dreadfully thin. I wont spoil the rest as this is probably the strongest story on here. But I tell you I'd love to know what's in that box and it's that, that keeps this so suspenseful just what was it that stopped them eating?

The second story the birthday party is possibly the weakest and oddest of the bunch. A woman setting up for a girls birthday party is beset by odd neighbors or family members as she does this.
Not only that she stumbles in on what I can guess is her husband dead, seemingly from an overdose. Although the woman see's this as more of an inconvenience than something sad. She then spends the rest of the short trying to either hide or divert people away from his corpse.
That's basically it for the short till the end so I won't spoil anymore other than the short does have a longer title than first seen!

The third short Don't Fall doesn't really have anything to do with it's name but is probably the second best story on this quadrilogy. Four friends/family members have found themselves, thanks to a tip off from some gas station worker in a remote yet beautiful part of the wilderness.
Having traveled there in their RV. So right at the beginning the one girl (Gretchen) is playfully mock pushed by her friend on top of a height. She gets scared and backs off to a little covered rock area, in that area the four of them discover an old wall painting. The painting is depicting 3 people being stalked by a giant demon/creature.
While outside later on Gretchen is attacked by a weird demon and transforms into a creature herself,she then proceeds to stalk the other three. There's not much more to it so THN won't spoil any more for you,

The Fourth is for me probably the worst of the bunch. Her Only Living Son see's a mother dealing with a seemingly rebellious teen son, nothing quite out of the ordinary there. That is until you see people acting strange around her and her son. We also get some get flashback story filler helping explain what is going on with her son. Of course all is not what it seems as there is definitely more to her son than meets the eyes.

This film is certainly a bold step forwards for every female involved and i would love to give it extra points based on just that. But as a movie which i have to judge it on this is a definite 50/50 hit and miss with it's 4 stories, even saying that the third one with it's pointless setting was hard to judge, so this film at least for me gets 2 stars out of 5 from THN, possibly only worth watching if you like me love multi story films like this.