First off, this movie is billed (probably not through its own fault, but by association with previous Jordan Peele movies) as a "horror" movie. But I really don't think it is one. It has some suspense, sure, it has has a "monster," but it isn't really trying to be scary, I think? And the suspense is more about mystery than any meaningful sense of danger. I never felt like I was watching a horror movie. It has more jokes than horror, but I wouldn't call it a comedy, either.

What I would call it is a movie about making movies. It is thematically built around the idea of spectacle (especially Steven Yeun's character "arc" and story) and auteurism. I knew going in that the movie was built in practical effects rather than CGI - one of the things I did like about this movie - but I didn't realize that was also basically the subtext of the story. Pointless, gaudy spectacle is bad and dangerous, and if you do it you'll get eaten. You must respect the monster/art. But you can't get too obsessed with art for art's sake, either, or you'll be drawn to increasingly dangerous things and eaten that way, too. You've just gotta sit down and make cool stories. I do agree that CGI sucks though and practical effects look better and age MUCH better, if they're well-executed, and a lot of it in this movie was.

The problem is, this movie doesn't really have a cool story. It's glacially paced and kind of boring. There is soooooo much setup for not that much payoff. The movie was fine, but I didn't like it nearly as much as Get Out, for instance. Admittedly, I'm not much of a horror movie watcher so maybe there are tropes being played with that I didn't fully appreciate or understand, since it is clearly a very referential film. I intellectually appreciated a lot going on here from what I did personally grasp, but ultimately was just not that entertained. I suspect this will be one of my ratings that is most-disagreed-with by the average Serious Movie Fan, since they love this film.

Score: 5/10

IMDb: Nope

PS: Random ratings addendum of the week: Get Out is close to a perfect horror movie, and it is probably a 9/10. I am not a huge fan of the genre, so I'd probably tend to grade horror movies a little more harshly than a big fan would, but it is so smart and so good.