The Resort (2021) - So many cliches

I'm not saying that I'm the greatest screenwriter ever (my screenwriting credits amount to a grand total of NO films!), but I have been watching horror films since the seventies.  I like to think this at least gives me an idea of what to expect when watching a horror/slasher film. 'Scream' was released back in 1997 and poked fun at all the cliches and silliness associated with the genre so I find it hard to believe a film like this can be made in 2021.

It's not a terrible film, it's just filled with so many elements that anyone who's ever watched a horror film will roll their eyes at what happens here.  It's about four friends (their ages are never revealed here, but if they're actually supposed to be teenagers then they look at least thirty!) who visit a remote island off Hawaii in the hope of getting some photographs of a deserted resort that's supposed to be haunted.

Nothing wrong with the premise, but no sooner have we been introduced to our quartet do we get a flashback of the main girl in a hospital bed after the visit to the island.  There, she tells a detective that all her friends were killed, so that kind of removes all tension with the other three as to whether they'll live or not.

The four main characters aren't that memorable; besides the 'young' woman who's the lead, you have a generic blonde as her friend, plus a guy who looks like Thor when he was fat, plus another man who only talks about s3x.  Seriously, that's his whole 'character' - he just talks constantly about s3x.  

The film isn't long - one hour and fifteen minutes - which is probably a bonus, but I stuck with it until the final act.  I've seen a fair few horror films that were pretty generic all the way through, but at least had a decent finale.  Not here.  The evil spirit looks like a cheaper version of the girl from 'The Ring,' the audio seems to get muffled and you can't really hear what people are saying and the characters start running around like headless chickens.

Like I say, it's not the worst film I've ever seen, but there are a million of the same genre that are much better and without the numerous cliches which make it seem like it's been written by someone who's never seen a horror film in their life.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back