and so does not knowing where we are or what's going on

Published: Oct. 1, 2019, 1 a.m.

we need context. you can't just have andy casually find two dead bodies, when there are no other characters in the film at all. maybe if you had introduced us to the nice old couple that lived down the way in an earlier scene--say, they were in line in front of susan at the convenience store where airquotes works--and they were lovely people and now we see them dead and we are horrified because, oh no, mr and mrs wilkes dies horrifically and they were great, and they made airquotes feel like an actual character who cared about other people beyond herself and about other things beyond dead starlings and stupid fantasy novels. give us some fucking context so it matters when things happen. we don't know whose house this is, we don't know who these people are, and as bored and pissed off as we should be this far into the movie, we shouldn't have to be bothered to try to care. maybe cut a couple minute from the andy-walks-down-a-tunnel sequence, or half an hour off of fishmouth's naked soliloquy, cut a few blurry shots of characters walking, cut a few shots of vehicles driving in the dark, cut that inane red fog, and make some room for characters we care about, even the old folks who live down the way and get raped to death by a (not-so-)demonic biker. #mandy minute 82