IMDb RATING
5.5/10
6.5K
YOUR RATING
A family finds themselves terrorized by their eight-year-old son's imaginary friend.A family finds themselves terrorized by their eight-year-old son's imaginary friend.A family finds themselves terrorized by their eight-year-old son's imaginary friend.
- Awards
- 9 wins & 8 nominations
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDeborah Ferguson's debut.
- GoofsEarly in the film, Beth drops Josh off at Vincent Massey School, which happens to be a real school in Calgary, Alberta. Later, however, at about 12m, Josh's Red Cards (discipline notices) say "Coleman's Elementary School."
- Quotes
[last lines]
Joshua Parsons: Goodnight Mom, Goodnight Dad, Goodnight Aunt Jenna, Goodnight Mossy
[after a long pause]
Joshua Parsons: Goodnight... Z!
- Crazy creditsThere's a special message from the director towards the end of the credits that reads "Brandon Christensen would like to thank his wife Alissa for her inspiration for Z. She has had a hard few years to say the least, but her strength and has [sic] kept our family running smoothly. He would also like to thank his parents Rod and Brenda for once again letting him live with them while he makes another film."
- ConnectionsReferences Children of the Corn (1984)
Featured review
Strong start that trails off in the second half
This is a trend that more and more horror movies made in the last few years follow. "Z" is another one to add to that list, with a strong start that loses all sense of direction in the second half.
"Z" has the bones of a strong movie though. The main actress plays her role genuinely, and her acting interplay with the child actor is convincing. Most kids in horror movies nowadays get compared to the child in "Babadook" and this child actor is nothing of that whiny sort. He pulls off some well done solo shots. "Z" also looks great. The director manages to pull out everything he can out of his budget (which was around 400k), and produced a movie with the looks and direction five to ten times of the money that went into it. That in its own sense deserves credit, the movie's looks and sounds fantastic for the budget.
Where "Z" really begins to loose it's mark is in the direction of the plot, especially the second half. The beginning of the movie starts off well, and it's subtlety is jarring. It has jump scares few and far in between, relying more on atmosphere. The jump scares it does show are decently well done. Best of all, the characters actually act sane. They reacting to what happens like real people in real life would do, which is refreshing.
Right around the halfway point it looses its direction completely. It's a different movie, like the director switched out with someone else. "Z" turns into cheap jump scares galore, the characters devolve into morons, and the plot jumps off the path laid out by the first half of the film. This all ends with the last 20 minutes that had me peering out from hands over my eyes, not from the horror but from the cringe of the plot.
"Z" turns into a B level horror movie where gone was any sense of subtly and instead everything is presented to you at face value. Nothing against these type of horror movies, but with the potential the first half of the movie showed, it's hard to not be disappointed with how it ended. Still though, the director is one to keep an eye on. If he can learn from some of his mistakes, he can put out something worth watching all the way through. The first half of the film marks that his potential is there.
"Z" has the bones of a strong movie though. The main actress plays her role genuinely, and her acting interplay with the child actor is convincing. Most kids in horror movies nowadays get compared to the child in "Babadook" and this child actor is nothing of that whiny sort. He pulls off some well done solo shots. "Z" also looks great. The director manages to pull out everything he can out of his budget (which was around 400k), and produced a movie with the looks and direction five to ten times of the money that went into it. That in its own sense deserves credit, the movie's looks and sounds fantastic for the budget.
Where "Z" really begins to loose it's mark is in the direction of the plot, especially the second half. The beginning of the movie starts off well, and it's subtlety is jarring. It has jump scares few and far in between, relying more on atmosphere. The jump scares it does show are decently well done. Best of all, the characters actually act sane. They reacting to what happens like real people in real life would do, which is refreshing.
Right around the halfway point it looses its direction completely. It's a different movie, like the director switched out with someone else. "Z" turns into cheap jump scares galore, the characters devolve into morons, and the plot jumps off the path laid out by the first half of the film. This all ends with the last 20 minutes that had me peering out from hands over my eyes, not from the horror but from the cringe of the plot.
"Z" turns into a B level horror movie where gone was any sense of subtly and instead everything is presented to you at face value. Nothing against these type of horror movies, but with the potential the first half of the movie showed, it's hard to not be disappointed with how it ended. Still though, the director is one to keep an eye on. If he can learn from some of his mistakes, he can put out something worth watching all the way through. The first half of the film marks that his potential is there.
helpful•162
- paulsgondea
- Jul 11, 2020
- How long is Z?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Z Wants to Play
- Filming locations
- Alberta, Canada(Western Canadian Province)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $788,597
- Runtime1 hour 23 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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