That's NOT How You Anti-Hero

Don't watch Anonymous 616.

Or maybe do, this post will probably make more sense if you've seen it, but I'm definitely not recommending this thing to anyone, so when you've sat through an hour and half of pure what the fuck don't look askance at me, okay?

As with everything I do here, SPOILERS.

I write about horrible people that do horrible things. Theoretically I don't have a problem with a movie about a pervert who smokes DMT, tortures his friends to death, and then cuts out a twelve-year old's heart and eats it in a misguided bid to become God, although with something that extreme it's got to be handled very, very carefully to be effective.

THIS MOVIE IS NOT EFFECTIVE, for one primary reason: this is not how you anti-hero.

Anonymous 616 follows Sgt. Hipster (I can't remember any of the characters' names and I don't want to give this thing's IMDB entry a single fucking click) and a bunch of cannon fodder including Director's Wife*, Bland Realtor, Other Chick, and Daughter. Oh yeah, and Reverend What the Fuck there at the end. None of the characters are interesting--Bland Realtor's main distinguishing feature is that he likes to play shitty butt-rock at a high volume because he can, Other Chick is Vaguely Ethnic™, and Director's Wife has godawful taste in men in both the movie and real life. We learn nothing of consequence about any of these people, and none do anything of note other than die miserable deaths at the hands of Sgt. Hipster.

I've got no problem with a morally ambiguous lead. I fucking grew up in the '90s, where every single character was an anti-hero including Superman for a hot minute. But anti-heroes need to have some sort of unorthodox morality, an interior code. Think the Punisher or Dexter Morgan--neither kills wantonly, both have certain types of people that they won't kill, selection criteria, etc. Dexter wouldn't have saran-wrapped Rita (RIP) to a table because of a paranoid suspicion that she was cheating on him.

Sgt. Hipster isn't an anti-hero, he's a creepy POS from the beginning, and there's really no conflict. His own personal Tyler Durden IMs him and tells him he can do whatever he wants, and he does--Jesus Christing his best friend to the wall with a nailgun conveniently left lying about, smothering his girlfriend with a plastic bag, and much, much worse. It's like if Hostel followed Saladhands for the whole movie. What the hell are we supposed to be cheering for?

If Sgt. Hipster had struggled with his destructive impulses in a meaningful way, this movie might have been kind of interesting. If Director's Wife, Other Chick, or Daughter had turned into the typical Final Girl and put a few nails into Sgt. Hipster's skull, this movie could have been a run-of-the-mill horror trifle. As it is, the movie forces the viewer to sit in an irredeemable garbage person's POV for an hour and a half with no one to root for. The good guy's don't have to win, and we don't have to follow them, but if the monster's front-and-center we need to be able to glimpse the humanity under all those teeth.

And here? There's not even teeth, just dentures and the meat that gets stuck in between.     

*Not 100% on this but pretty sure.

UPDATE: If you want to debate, great. I'm wrong about all kinds of shit. But don't fucking post your own movie reviews here or links to your blog, they will be deleted.