Z

Director - Brandon Christensen (Still/Born, Torture Porn)
Starring - Keegan Connor Tracy (Final Destination 2, Supernatural), Jett Klyne (The Boy, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), and Sean Rogerson (Underworld: Evolution, Grave Encounters)
Release Date - 2019
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Z wants to play"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Shudder has been bringing some modern hits to horror fans recently with Cursed Films and The Barge People.  Both were fantastic releases that I'm extremely grateful that I could review.  When I received the press release for the 2019 supernatural horror film Z from RLJE and Shudder I was excited to say the least.  I reached out to RLJE and they were kind enough to send a review copy my way.  Thanks guys!

  

     The film follows the Parsons family.  We have mother Elizabeth, father Kevin, and their son Joshua.  Joshua recently made up an imaginary friend named Z.  His mother finds it strange but his father believes that its typical for a boy his age.  However, Z is a bad influence on Joshua and soon he is suspended from school.  Other parents refuse to let Joshua around their children and then accidents start to happen to other children that do.  Elizabeth takes him to a therapist but she soon learns that she had an imaginary friend named Z when she was a child.  This jars her memory and realizes that Z is using her son to get to her and will stop at nothing to reclaim the little girl he once loved. 
     I went into Z with excitement but that quickly waned after the first 15 minutes of the film.  The movie itself is shot beautifully but the pacing is all wrong and the story is painfully predictable.  Honestly, I struggled to finish it.  The acting in this one is solid but I found myself really disliking the characters.  I'm not blaming her or the cast for my disliking of the characters.  The mother figure played by Tracy annoyed me as a mother.  Those behind the writing really needed to give the viewer a character they could rally behind instead of a family where you expect to watch them all die.  The story for this one has an interesting premise but it's painfully predictable.  Horror movies have used imaginary friends as a plot device before but this one took an interesting approach to the film.  With that being said, you know fairly early on exactly what is going to happen.  Finally, the film does have a little blood and a few quick glimpses of Z but nothing really redeeming about either of those.  Z looks cool for the few quick shots we get at him and the one bloody moment in the film is over before you can appreciate it.  Overall, Z is a lackluster film that has a solid enough premise but the predictability and delivery leaves so much on the table.  This is one that I would skip.