This is a tough time of year for watching movies. Hockey playoffs, the start of the baseball season and a girlfriend who has become obsessed (happily for me) with running (the time change has helped) and there is little time to watch movies. But I was having issues sleeping last night so I thought i would take in a movie. I bypassed Netflix and looked through Amazon Prime. It took two minutes to find the 2016 movie “Pet”. It had three and a half out of five stars on Amazon but only had a 50% rotten rating from RottenTomatoes.com. But, as you read in my past posts, I do not let poor reviews from critics stop me.

“Pet” is a horror/suspense film written by Jeremy Slater and directed by Carles Torrens. It stars Dominic Monaghan (from the television show “Lost”), Ksenia Solo (“Black Swan”), Jennette McCurdy(from the Disney television she “iCarley”) and Da’Vone McDonald (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”).

The movie is about Seth (Monaghan) who leads a pretty lonely and uninteresting life (some say he would be a loser but I do not want to become an online bully). one day, he sees Holly and, instantly has a crush. That crush soon becomes and obsession. He decides to capture her. He builds a cage at his place of work, drugs and imprisons her like an animal. But then we see, things are not what they seem and Holly seems to have some issues of her own. Then, the real battle begins with a rather disturbing ending.

The critics did not like this movie because they believed that the plot was chaotic and the development was a little slow. I agree with the critics for the most part. The build up was slow but I believe it may have been a bit necessary to force the viewer to see the characters in a certain way (Seth as the stalker and Holly as the helpless victim). Only then can the writer pull the rug from under the viewer. In other words, the writer had to do it because the characters were not really developed well. The story, also, was chaotic mostly from bad character development. McCurdy was an important character when it came to developing Solo’s character, but she was barely in the film and, when the secret of Holly was revealed, I kind of went, “OK?”. So things were kind of thrown around here. The filming was very good. It was dark and I really felt the tension between the main characters. I was also able to feel the stress that Seth went through, trying to keep his secret hidden. The acting was…not horrible. Solo plays a great nut but I could not feel that Monaghan was the dangerous stalker he was suppose to be.

Here’s the thing though: I thought it was a very entertaining film. I had fun. It kept me watching. Yes, I had those “WTF?!” moments but I just left it to poetic license and kept enjoying the movie. I am glad I did not spend twelve dollars on it (which is probably why my review is favorable). The movie is rated R and has some graphic violence. It ain’t for kids and would make a questionable date movie (unless your date is into that).

I give it a three and a half out of five stars.

Pictures courtesy of:
trailers.apple.com
fangoria.com
imdb.com