Take Back the Night
Directed by Gia Elliot
Finding herself the victim of a violent monster attack, Jane launches a vigilante campaign to hunt the beast that tried to kill her. Jane’s efforts intensify, but her troubling history of drug use and mental illness bubbles to the surface causing her family, community, and authorities to question the authenticity of her account. Suddenly alone in her fight, Jane starts to doubt her own memory of the attack…to doubt if Monster exists at all.
Finding herself the victim of a violent monster attack, Jane launches a vigilante campaign to hunt the beast that tried to kill her.
Cast: Emma Fitzpatrick, Angela Gulner, Jennifer Lafleur, Sibongile Mlambo
Member Reviews
As others have written here, it’s a well-intentioned freshman effort that gives up and hands the script to the intern in the final quarter and says “here, you finish writing this.” It’s hard to like the protagonist for various reasons, and the mythology of the beast is all over the place — he never stops hunting you, supposedly, except there are victims and survivors all over the world, so I guess he does stop hunting you? And maybe he hunted another central character and then gave up? The final scene is basically two giggly girls on a road trip. It really undermines the tone and message of the film, whose subject matter is pretty important.
TW: Assault, PTSD/CPTSD, disbelief/victim blaming, mental illness, drugs, child abuse. This is a really well done story, ontop of an excellent allegory for how survivors of abuse and assault are disbelieved, and the power of community. Horror movies generally have a way of using storytelling to expose real life horrors; this one does so with style. Well shot, well acted, genuinely terrifying.
Add it to your “vengeance is hers” playlist for sure. The ending got a little silly, but hey, swings and roundabouts.
this movie was a lot better than i was expecting (given the butthurt andrew tate fans in the comments)..intriguing story that addresses a lot of painfully real issues, unconventional monster design, depicts PTSD in an interesting way (similar to ms 45 but done in a more artistic way), it works on a lot of different levels..intelligent, important and entertaining
This would terrify a woman walking home at night.