F

 

Ah, F, where should I possibly begin? You boast cinematic recollection of true events although you're ultimately taking a pseudo-realistic premise and then turning it into a "hard" slasher. Unbelievable, of course. "Unnerving"? Never. Post-Columbine still rings through the ears of the sensitive. I, personally, had forgotten about the tragedy as two more of substantial pop value have occurred since. It seems the director, Johannes Roberts, hasn't. Or it is possible that he is simply referencing another academic slaughter, but with the incredible likenesses F shares with the earlier released The Strangers, it is unlikely. You see, I've heard all about F and how wildly exciting or bland it may be. I expected, embraced, and shed all recognition of material before viewing because I simply wanted a pleasurable experience. I didn't ask for much. Further attracting and promoting the horrendous tag of "hoodie horror", F takes the subjugated subgenre all too seriously by having a doppelganger-like cast of similarly structured hooded villains which we never see. That's right, the film which open begging the question of who? or why? is never answered. Just another reason to avoid F entirely, in case you were hoping for even the smallest droplet of conclusion.

In case one assumes that I need to be "spoon-fed" a story, I'll have you know that it is quite obvious that the problem lies not with me, but the film I so righteously brought forth for judgment. F opens with a rather cruel old teacher handing back graded tests when one of the students, who received an F and further humiliation at the hands of the teacher, stands erect, pursues, and assaults the frail male. 11 months after the attack, after the humility, and after the separation, Mr. Anderson returns to teaching with a debilitating case of paranoia and a weakened liver (one he personally assaults with hard liquor. typical). The director chose a fateful day of Mr. Anderson's to be documented because his daughter (who is a student of his class) is given detention, more or less for attention, as the family has been severed. This serves as a slight lottery of who the killers could possibly be. Regardless we will never know. F basically pulls a similar move as did The Collector, in which it takes a macabre and sinister scenario, hints to a previous face, and giggles menacingly as we fumble with the last chapter option on our remote controls. As you could probably guess, F turns its charade from chilling and sympathetic foreshadowing to a hard, yet stupid slasher film. F's decision to mask the killers could have been done marvelously had they not been manufactured fodder and perfect in execution. Each individual faceless and characteristically amorphous entity is exceptional in amateur parkour, meaning they scale shelves, drop down onto their prey from strategically placed set perches, and cover a large amount of ground in a small fraction of time. They are the perfect hunters. Wielding a large arsenal of melee weapons, the killers of F also happen to be unrealistically vicious and messy. Instead of fulfilling the vapid desire to simply take lives, which is a sadly easy process, the shadowed figures of F fulfill the stalwart standards of your average horror/gore fan which includes some pretty "out there", albeit horrific and sickening, acts of carnage committed on anyone unlucky enough to be stationed at the school at such an hour. F implies with a white flag in hand that the killer has been revealed to be a face. F just doesn't have the gall to present us verification.

The plot has been marketed as a group of teachers surviving a massacre. To call bluff, not on the lack of survivors, but on the absence of teachers excluding one that is not the main character, the unfortunate father of a cunt, F disavows such a spectacle in favor of a merciless father (the lone teacher expect for the nod towards a possible gym instructor) of a rebellious teenage daughter (by now this should be obvious, this malice I hold). PSA of film waste - F is digital litter. F is the embodiment of a film treatment tragedy that at a glance seems respectful, in light of the blight of a decade, but in fact, tosses all known and ineffective conventions to better suit the fans of such grisly torture cinema like, dare I say it, Saw - whose entire existence depended on writers clashing heads to one-up the year priors. The thought never came to mind, that we're dealing with brutish youth. It would appear to be, rather, phantoms. Facial concealment came as a surprise as the "hard knock" boogyemen prowl in plentifully-lit sets, although with their faces obscured the entire time. It serves as a smear on fluid storytelling. Not only has F committed various acts of criminal cinema behavior but its upbringing actually hinted towards a few notches shy of greatness. This is one product that you cannot blame on its environment. F knew where it was going all along. It just revels in mischief. Far from being the worst film I have seen in some time, F just skips that step into full-blown disappoint. F could have been the better man and kept its morose dignity by films end but would rather taunt both the after-school victims and us, the viewers, by giving us never a reason or a whim. Simply put, F is methodically stupid.

-mAQ