Thanks Simon and Michael Barrett, for proving me wrong. I often talk about how horror works best in small bursts. It's why I adore the V/H/S movies and am always optimistic about horror anthologies. Horror is most effective the less that it is explained. That's why I was super excited when I saw that the Simon Barrett-penned Temple was well under 90 minutes. Barrett is one of my favorite horror writers right now In addition to writing the lively You're Next and imperfect Blair Witch, he's written 4 segments in V/H/S movies. His specialty is getting in, scaring, and getting out as efficiently as possible.
Temple, however, was too short. At least, it was poorly paced. Most of the movie is a drama about three young people traveling together in Japan. It's a love triangle story with some ominous overtones. It finally gets to the scares at the end, and they weren't good enough to justify the wait. The end is abrupt and unsettled, but not in a good way. I put up with an hour of this lolve triangle, and none of it gets resolved.
I get the feeling that this is Barrett dabbling in J-horror elements and this screenplay of all the ones he had happened to get made; similar to how I feel about Joss Whedon's In Your Eyes. I'm going to assume the two Barrett's are brothers or otherwise related. This is Michael's first time as a director. I wonder if the movie would've been better had Simon worked with his normal director, Adam Wingard.
Temple isn't a complete waste of time. The three leads are engaging enough. The dark photography works to set the tone. It has a couple good scares. And the benefit of being too short is that it doesn't take up the entire night. If this was bad and three hours long, then I would've been pissed.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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