Blink Twice

A cocktail waitress is swept away to a billionaire tech mogul's private island, but the lavish party lifestyle she finds there hides a terrible secret.

Just fyi... that Trigger Warning is on the money.

In the film's defense, it doesn't glorify the violence, nor does it revel in its depictions either. It doesn't redeem those who commit it, or victim-blame either, but still... there's some pretty fucked up things that happen in this story. But like I said, it's not graphic. I don't think there's even any nudity. There's a lot of tension, there's blood too, and there's terrifying images and subject matters definitely, but for the most part, this movie is shot in that classic horror film way where you know what's happening, you definitely get a glimpse of what's happening, but mostly, it doesn't show you what's happening. Instead, the film lets you fill in the blanks in your head, an old school technique that is so effective, people often don't notice that they haven't actually seen any of the horror happen, because it makes things all the more gruesome and horrifying. And to its credit as a horror film, Blink Twice does this very well...

So it may be too much for some people.

Hence the warning. Be warned. I'm not going to sit here and claim this is the scariest film ever made or anything, or that it contains things you've never seen or heard about before (although the fact that it seems so mundance ultimately is part of what makes this so terrifying, I think). I'm not even going to say that the secret of what's happening in this film is all that shocking or surprising either, it's exactly what you will probably assume is going to happen, but still, that having been said, some people may find the subject matter to be too intense. That's totally valid. Just remember there's no shame in deciding that it's too much, that you don't want to watch it, and deciding to turn the movie off.

Why do I say this?

Well, Blink Twice is part of a subgenre of horror known as "Rape/Revenge" and upon hearing that, right away, that's probably all the answer you need, right? If that's the case, fine, but you'll pardon me if I prattle on a bit...

A controversial subgenre, "Rape and Revenge" films usually focuses on female main characters who were sexually assaulted or raped, who then seek vengence on the people who have assaulted them. There is some debate as to whether or not the revenge must be carried out by the assault victim for the film to be considered part of this genre, or if it may be carried out by their loved ones as well, but that's the kind of arguement that non-filmheads generally don't give a shit about.

While there are some earlier examples of this genre, like the 1931 film A Woman Branded, which is about a woman who is raped, contracts a venereal disease, and seeks revenge on her rapists, or Bergman's The Virgin Spring, where a father seeks vengeance on the herdsmen who raped and murdered his daughter, and is the film where the term "Rape and Revenge" was first coined–although, again some point out that this one is technically more of a "Rape and Avenge" film–these kinds of films rose to prominence in the 1970s, where they often relied on the shock value of a brutal rape scene, as well as the additional shock value of the main character's often even more brutal revenge. Films like Wes Craven's debut, The Last House on the Left, or Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, or the Death Wish movies, are well-known examples of the genre.

It's a wide genre, one that could be said to include both Red Sonja and Tarantino's The Bride from the Kill Bill movies, or the The Crow in the 90s, and also movies like Coralie Fargeat's Revenge and Emerald Fennel's Promising Young Woman more recently. Although, again, there's some debate as to whether or not some of these films technically belong under the "rape and revenge" umbrella.

Personally, I don't really give a shit. I'm not a big fan of the genre.

To me, these rape and revenge films just feel too all-around mean and ugly. The feeling of them being too voyeuristic is too much. The sense of being complicit in the violence of the story is maybe too gross. I find that these kinds of horror films especially often struggle with creating a story that has characters that you like and empathize with, who then must experience the horrible events of the film's story, but not in a way that makes you want to turn it all off, and all while making sure to not make light of the situation or to sexualize any of it. It often feels like the end question is simply: "Yeah, but... why did you even want to tell this story?" And the worst part about that is, often times, that question will often end up revealing that a lot of these films are really only using the narrative's supposed moral as a pretext to justify them being able to create depictions of extremely graphic murder and rape, and that feels really shitty.

So, me personally, if I had known ahead of time that this was the twist of Blink Twice, I probably would've skipped this film. I wouldn't have bothered watching it. But I didn't know, so now here we are...

Our story begins with the perfect encapsulation of our society, as the animal-themed nail artist and cocktail waitress, Frida, is mindlessly scrolling on her phone while sitting on the toilet. This is how she comes across Slater King, an extremely rich and serially problematic tech bro asshole, who has recently resigned as CEO of his company for some unspecificed "bad" behavior, and is now on an apology tour. In the video, he is going on and on about how he's turned his life around by doing a new meditation regimen at his private island retreat.

Frida is instantly smitten.

Later, she and her friend Jess work a charity event as cater-waiters, but partway through the night, they change into fancy clothes and set about mingling. Frida has her heart set on meeting Slater King, who is donating to whatever the cause de jour was. She manages to do just that through the power of her adorably clumsy every-girl charm, and the two hit it off. Slater invites both Frida and Jess to join him and his friends on his private island.

They don't even go home and pack. Still in their gala finery, they head to the airport. Besides Slater, there are four other men on the private plane... Vic, Slater's right-hand man. Cody, Slater's buddy and private chef. Tom, a recently divorced TV writer and amatuer DJ. And Lucas, a recent college graduate and "wonderboy" associate in Slater King's company. Also, besides Freida and Jess, there are three other women on the plane as well, Sarah, a semi-well-known reality show star, Camilla, an aspiring app developer, and Heather, a lawyer.

Off they go... What could go wrong?

Where is this island exactly? How long will they be gone? How will they get home? Who knows. Upon arrival, Slater's assistant Stacy confiscates everyone's phones, to ensure that everyone is "present in the moment." The island is an expansive and beautiful estate that they have all to themselves, save for the local population, who work as groundskeepers and house staff. The women are all given their own lavish room. They are given nice clothes, lots of drugs, lots of booze, and lots of rich food. Frida finds a lipstick abandoned in a drawer in her bathroom, it has hair matted to it. The party never stops. The island is festooned with strange red flowers, and it is crawling with pale yellow snakes. The pool is so relaxing. Frida clashes with Sarah over Slater, but Slater clearly prefer Frida. It's all so fun. The local workers all have the same strange snake tattoo. Jess seems to notices memory lapses. At an point, a maid corners Frida, calling her "Red Rabbit" over and over. It's such a good time. Frida sees Slater's therapist Rich, who she met at the Gala, is visiting, and as he is leaving, he is gifted with a red bag. She says hello, and Rich seems uncomfortable to see Frida. He also seems surprised to learn that Frida remembers their previous encounter at the gala. Such a fun time. What beautiful weather. They all do shots!

Pay no attention to those red flags...

Then, during one night of partying, Jess is bitten by a snake. She's fine, but she crashes out a bit, and tells Frida she wants to leave. She explains that she distrusts the others, but doesn't know why, and can only say that she feels like something terrible is happening. Frida calms her down, telling Jess that she finally feels "seen" for the first time in her life, and that she wants to stay.

Reluctantly, Jess agrees to stay.

The next morning, Frida stumbles across a room that is filled with dozens of red gift bags just like the one Rich was given. Each one holds a bottle of perfume in it. Frida encounters the same maid who called her Red Rabbit, as she is killing one of the snakes, who then persuades Frida to drink snake venom from a bottle. Which she does, which causes her to start to glimpse flashbacks of seemingly disturbing events at the island that she doesn't fully recall or understand. At breakfast, the men announce that they're going fishing. While the women are getting facials, Frida realizes for the first time that day that Jess is missing.

The other women do not remember Jess at all.

This understandably freaks Frida out a little, but she can find zero proof that Jess was ever there. But then Sarah finds a lighter with Jess's name inscribed on it, she brings it to Frida, confused, because she doesn't remember Jess at all. They realize they've both had memory lapses. In the room with gift bags, the pair figure out that the bottles of perfume are made from a red flower that is indigenous to the island, and that the scent wipes out memories. Frida then realizes that the snake venom is a natural antidote to the flower's effects. She persuades Sarah to drink some, and Sarah's memory begins to return. They then realize that they, and who knows how many other women who have been brought to this island, are being systematically raped and sexually assaulted by the men, and then have the horrible events wiped from their memories by the perfume. They also finds photos of all the wealthy and powerful men Slater has hosted at his island, all so they could rape the unwitting women who there as well, and that when they leave, each guy is gifted with a bottle of the perfume. Now recalling every horrible thing that has happened since they've been on the island, including how Jess was killed after she was bitten by the snake, since her memories couldn't be erased anymore, Frida and Sarah trick Camilla and Heather into drinking the venom as well.

And then comes the reckoning...

The daughter of actress Lisa Bonet and musician/scarf enthusiast Lenny Kravitz, Blink Twice is Zoë Kravitz's directorial debut. She co-wrote the script with E.T. Feigenbaum, someone I know nothing about, but judging by their name, I assume they also run a circus.

Kravitz is a pretty standard issue Hollywood nepo-baby, she's chraming, she's pretty, she knows how to pose on a red carpet, and she's kind of a huge dumbass. But to be fair, this is a pretty unavoidable reality when you're brought up by rich and famous celebrity parents, in a world of rich and famous people, where school doesn't really matter, and you're rarely told no, and then you eventually slide into a rich and famous lifestyle yourself. This is basically why she had that scandal a few years ago for being weirdly inappropriate about 14 year old Jaden Smith. And it's why it took her about seven years or so, after starting work on the script in 2017, to figure out that titling the film "Pussy Island" probably wasn't going to work out.

Kravitz explained:

"It was made very clear to me that ‘pussy’ is a word that we, our society, are not ready to embrace yet. There were a lot of roadblocks along the way, whether it be the MPAA not wanting to put it on a poster, or a billboard, or a kiosk; movie theaters not wanting to put it on a ticket. Interestingly enough, after researching it, women were offended by the word, and women seeing the title were saying, ‘I don’t want to see that movie,’ which is part of the reason I wanted to try and use the word, which is trying to reclaim the word, and not make it something that we’re so uncomfortable using. But we’re not there yet. And I think that’s something I have the responsibility as a filmmaker to listen to. I care about people seeing the film, and I care about how it makes people feel.”

What an absolute fucking dunderhead. This is the kind of shit that you end up saying with absolute sincerity, like it's this shocking revelation, when you're born, live, and work all while deeply ensconced within a bubble of wealth and privilege.

So in 2024, she changed the title to Blink Twice.

Anyway, as I've already said, if I had known beforehand that Blink Twice was a Rape/Revenge film, I might've skipped it entirely, but I'm actually glad I didn't, because overall, it was... pretty not bad.

While it's maybe not as sharp, surprising, or as interesting with its ideas as you might want, it's really not bad. Kravitz did a good job with this one, and delivered a generally scary and really tense little horror film about a bunch of dumb girls, who stupidly go off with a bunch of obvious assholes they don’t know, to an uncharted island, and ultimately learn a very painful lesson that women really need to stick together.

AND... it has a really good cast too. Naomi Ackie is excellent. She's appeared in 2073, and Mickey 17, which were both favorites of mine, and also in Shelter, because I guess they can’t all be winners, and also the Rise of Skywalker, which I have never seen, and never will. I will always love Christian Slater. For Heathers, Pump Up The Volume, True Romance, Gleaming the Cube, The Legend of Billie Jean, and of course, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Also, I love Alia Shawkat. Everyone should, for many reasons, but most definitely for Green Room. Also, that Hawke kid that plays Lucas? Wow, does he ever have a face that makes you immediately go… that has to be one of Uma Thurman’s kids. Finally, in perhaps what is no surprise to anyone, I am unreasonably excited to see stupid-ass Gambit again in Avengers: Doomsday, so Channing Tatum is pretty cool in my book. Plus, as a cherry on the top, Haley Joel Osmont is in this, and I really enjoy his post-child star career. All in all, a great cast.

As for the movie itself, sure, at first, it's hard to believe that a black woman wouldn't be more aware of the clear and present danger that particular situation put her in. In fact, you'd think every woman and poc living and working in New York City would immediately recognize that they have swam out past the breakers, and are now in shark-infested waters, as soon as they met Slater and his friends. Alia Shawkat's character, Jess, even jokes about this exact thing, but they don't pay attention. And really, you would think they'd be more aware of the growls coming from beyond the firelight, but I think that's part of the whole thing, right? Maybe that's the whole metaphor, the idea that the wealthy 5% and their sycophants are unavoidably inhuman monsters, that being an inhuman monster is the only way that a person can become one of the wealthy 5%, and that us normal humans often don't truly believe this, or are even capable of truly understanding it, until these monsters finally show us their blood-stained teeth, and that, most importantly, no matter what, no matter how much you try, no matter how much of yourself you sacrifice, no matter how much off yourself that give up, no matter what you do... they will never see you as their equal. You will never truly be one of them. That at best, you will only ever be a useful tool to them, right up until you aren't.

That is probably also why our heroine is a young Black woman.

I will say that I found it to be an interesting little twist that it was the friend who was worried about the looming danger, and not the heroine. It's usually ends up in the same place, and it definitely did here, but often time, it's the other way around, it's the friend that doesn't listen to the warnings.

I also really liked that even though Slater is an irredeemable monster, at least he admits it. I really liked how he tells Lucas, as the complicit little weenie is freaking out and whining that he never raped anyone, that his complicit silence makes him just as guilty, just as much of a monster as Slater is, and that “there’s a real special place in hell for the people who choose to do nothing.” That was nice. I liked that a lot. It may be too subtle for all of the complicit assholes out there in modern day America, but still... it's always nice to hear it said out loud and in clear terms.

I also really liked the moment where Slater laments that “There is no forgiveness, there’s just forgetting," which illustrated how he expects sorry to be a magic word, a get out-of-jail-free card, the end of the discussion, not a herald of the beginning of a potentially very long and arduous path of true contrition and making amends, which shows that he's not actually sorry at all, he's only sorry he was caught, that he was called out, that he's only sorry for the inconvenience that being called out has caused him, for how it interupts his selfish lifestyle. I liked this for how it acts as an accurate metaphorical microcosm of how The Problem (aka white Christian Fascist America and all their white enablers and excusers) that is currently tearing this country and this world apart, and is not going to go away, even if a Democrat takes office in '28, because the people responsible for this hurt and destruction, as well as the people who let them get away with it, and make excuses for them, and honestly don't really care about that either way, are not actually sorry for the harm they have caused at all, and that, much like the reason why they refused to mask during COVID, they only ever truly care about the fact that being asked to think about others instead of themselves is a huge inconvenience for them, and they hate doing it... because they're inhuman monsters.

My only quibble is that Slater is only half-right. There is no forgiveness, not anymore. That's just not possible.

But we also won't forget.

Which is the moral of the film... if we forget, it we allow these inhuman monsters to set the terms of their apology tour, to just mumble "sorry" and then go back to their lives as if nothing happened and no one of consequence was harmed, they'll just keep on causing harm, because that's all they're capable of.

So yeah, I loved the ending.