From award-winning writer/director Michael Bafaro (The Barber), DON’T LOOK AWAY stars Kelly Bastard, in her debut feature, as Frankie, a college student who accidentally unleashes a curse, and is stalked by a seemingly unstoppable – and murderous – mannequin.
After accidentally killing someone with her car, college student Frankie spots a mannequin standing in the middle of the street behind her. She soon discovers that she is the recipient of a fatal curse and begins seeing the mannequin everywhere she goes. Frankie’s friends don’t believe her seemingly paranoid ravings until they too begin to see the mannequin and must band together to stay alive.
Don’t Look Now is a rather tame horror film directed by the talented Michael Bafaro. I wasn’t really sure how this film would play out, I did love the opening of the film with a rather vicious-sounding slaughter in the back of a truck where ‘The Mannequin’ was being transported and had my hopes up for the film to continue with maybe some horror that would give me some jump scares.
Sadly I was a little disappointed as the film slowly built up to a moment where the murders start, but they aren’t really ones that stand out and I didn’t really pick up on any moments that would have some jump-scares so the film failed on those.
But I have to say that ‘The Mannequin’ itself is rather creepy as it suddenly appears from nowhere and moves when the victim looks away, much like a weeping angel in Doctor Who. It’s the face of ‘The Mannequin’ that is the real freaky thing in the film with its inset eyes and wild Joker-style grin.
As I mentioned earlier the opening scene set up my hopes, along with a hair-raising disco bloodbath, but sadly for me they are the moments that pulled me into the film.
I think the thing that kept me watching was a hope that some of the murders would be more horror but sadly they weren’t, which kind of made me feel that the film is really for those who don’t really do horror movies or for those that have Automatonophobia (a fear of human-like figures, such as mannequins).
The story plods along and I really didn’t feel the film going anywhere fast, there are some nice little moments such as Frankie’s boyfriend (Colm Hill) writing on his laptop and bringing us a Shining moment.
Don’t Look Away is out now in the UK, it may be worth checking out if you like creepy doll movies, but it’s certainly no Chucky or M3GAN!