Today we are going to cover the Kiwi Farms suicides, since people love to keep mentioning them for their own virtual signaling propaganda without knowing any details about the deaths of these three individuals. 

The Kiwi Farms is an internet forum with an extensive history that I am not going to touch upon since it doesn't matter in the context of this article. The forum is owned and managed by Joshua Moon who gets many negative criticisms thrown against him for cultivating and keeping a "toxic, criminal and reprehensible community".

In their own words:

She was aware of her Kiwi Farms thread pretty soon after its inception and often indirectly interacted with the users by posting on her public social media accounts reacting to their posts (usually accompanied by KF screenshots or links). She never made any of her social media accounts private, even though some users suggested for her to do so if she really didn't want them to post about her. This seemed to indicate that she enjoyed the attention she was getting, even though the majority of it was negative. People who were active in her real life were also aware of the thread but were more occupied with the fact that Julie was "smearing the Terryberry name through the mud" than getting her the appropriate help. 

Even though most of the posts in the 198-page thread made fun of Julie, there are concerns sprinkled in here and there that only become more prominent as the thread goes on. Many users also tried to give her advice like how to take proper care of her hygiene, in the hopes of her reading it and taking their suggestions to heart. In June, 2016 users realized that her Facebook account was set to private and her Fetlife account was deleted. They speculated that she had another fight with Mike, as whenever they would fight she would delete her social media accounts. A new user came into the thread saying Julie had killed herself. People were joking around because they didn't believe the user. A moderator of the forum did some digging and found that unfortunately the news was true; a link to her official obituary was posted and the thread was consequently locked. Julie Terryberry was only 18/19 years old when she took her own life.

I can guarantee you that anyone who talks about Julie Terryberry has not read her thread at all. No journalist has gone through all 198 pages to make a proper assessment of the situation. No virtue signaler on Twitter has taken the time to read the horrific things that were happening in Julie's life. All of these people just use her for their own sick gain. They couldn't care less about her life, cause if they did, they would see how much everyone around her failed her and the users of the Kiwi Farms forum were just there to document the entire tragedy while looking on with "horrified fascination".

Chloe Sagal

Chloe Sagal was a trans indie game developer who loved to go on social media and suicide bait for attention and money. This seems like an incredibly mean thing to say about someone who has indeed killed themselves, but this is the perception that Sagal gave off when looking at her (archived) social media pages. A lot of animosity towards people in her immediate circles, constant drama, and talk about wanting to kill herself seemed to be the norm. None of her online behavior indicated that she was a mentally sane person, and it was clear that if she did not get the help she needed, her life was going to end in suicide whether an online forum was going to document her downfall or not. In the end her suicide was to protest homelessness and mental health (as stated in many online news articles) and was not "the works" of the Farms.

Reading through Chloe Sagal's Kiwi Farms thread (which started in May, 2015) was pretty uneventful and nothing more than a collection of (and laughing at) her social media tantrums, figuring out her "dead name" to connect it to previous scummy behavior, friends who were sick and tired of her bullshit ousting her, and many pages making fun of her then girlfriend's "music career" and appearance. That's it. That was all there was to it. Transgender politics were never discussed and misgendering rarely, if ever, happened in the thread at all. Compared to Julie Terryberry's thread, this thread was extremely tame.

On June 22, 2018 it came to the attention of the forum that Chloe Sagal had taken her own life in the most brutal way possible. It was reported that in the weekend prior to her death, she was found with a machete and had threatened to kill herself. She was brought to a mental health crisis center. After her release her housemates had decided to kick her out, and it seems that upon hearing this news, she planned her own demise. She left two notes, went to Portland park with a manifesto, started reading said manifesto which was about homelessness and mental health issues, doused herself with liquid, and set herself on fire with a lighter. She later died in the hospital.

When one of the witnesses asked Chloe why she did what she did she said it was because she's homeless and didn't know what else to do. Here is a quote from one of the notes she left behind: "My death cannot be silent. It has to be loud and political. My entire life, my experience, my education has led up to this moment. I can only expect trauma and death from my existence."

What is extremely upsetting to know is that every single news article that pops up on the first pages of Google that talk about her death, say that (usually in their headline) "she committed suicide because she got bullied online" but then later in the article it is repeated that, by Chloe's own words, she wanted her death to be political, and that she killed herself over homelessness and mental health problems. Can journalists read? Do they know the concept of comprehensive reading ? 

So yes, the horrible Kiwi Farms was blamed in almost every single article you can read about Chloe's death, which to me seems extremely tone deaf. I will repeat: she said in her own words, in her manifesto, heard by bystanders, that she was reading a statement about homelessness and mental health issues. In her fucking suicide note she stated that she wanted to make a POLITLCAL STATEMENT BUT ALL YOU GUYS CAN TALK ABOUT IS THE EVUL KIWI FARMS????????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? 

It is, however, extremely unlikely that the Farms were responsible for a multitude of reasons, but the biggest one being that the thread was dead for over 6(!!!) months before her passing (last post being on December 28, 2017). But in actuality the thread was basically dead for almost a year:

This means that: in the second half of the year 2017 Chloe Sagal's Kiwifarms thread was more or less dead. Then it was completely silent during the first half of 2018. Only to be revived in June 2018 once it came to their attention that Chloe had passed away. Consequently the thread, just like Terryberry's thread, is now locked.

So, let's ask ourselves, why is the Kiwi Farms being pointed at as "being responsible"? Why is no one blaming fellow transwoman Brianna Wu for her suicide? There are enough screenshots going around from their private chats that Chloe herself leaked where she continues to say that Wu ruined her life. Or what about Zinnia Jones who publicly tweeted that Sagal was messaging her about her suicide plans back in January, 2015 and did nothing because Sagal also threatened to kill her? Choe also mentioned trans lifeline not being helpful at all. Why aren't they held accountable? Why is no one else "blamed" for this action except the Kiwi Farms? Why aren't they even mentioned in these "news articles" and why is no one actually reporting on HOMELESSNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH CARE LIKE CHLOE WANTED???

Here is an online article written by Robert Stacy McCain talking about Chloe's suicide. McCain was a prominent figure during the entire GamerGate fiasco and got yeeted off of Twitter. You love to see it!

First of all: If you feel suicidal, get some fucking help, and GET OFF THE FUCKING INTERNET. Second of all: Byuu isn't dead. Third of all: If these individuals didn't know and read their own KF thread, they wouldn't know they were getting "cyber bullied" either. A forum can't cyber bully you if they just talk among each other. It becomes bullying when they seek you, and people around you, out and constantly harass you no matter where you go. 

If anything the first two stories should make you shake your head and question society: these people were extremely terminally online, broadcasted every single fucked up thought they had, were very clearly slowly mentally declining, and yet no one in their immediate surroundings did anything. And now ask yourself: Why is Twitter using these tortured souls to push their agenda? How would you feel if this was someone you knew being used like that?

Recently a Youtuber, called MamaMax, published a video about a children's chat room that seems like a hivemind for pedo bears. The Youtuber Nexpo made a follow up video on this after MamaMax's original video got deleted. Something that i realized is that both Youtubers seemed perplexed that this is happening on the internet today. But i have different experiences, and i feel like many girls and women have shared experiences. 

I can tell you already that i have seen more dicks as an 11 year old than in my entire adult existence, all thanks to pervy degenerate people on the internet. I wont go too deep into my own story (and i have many), but i used to go on a social media website where i started following and talking to random people. I enjoyed getting to know new people from all walks of life. I was interested in everyone. I then added them on the chatting service of my choice as friends, and then we usually started chatting. 

I talked to people from all age groups and genders. Generally, nothing weird was going on. But i can tell you that at least 1 in 10 people had nefarious purposes when talking to me. I would start chatting with them and sometimes we would call each other and turn on our webcams. I made some friends this way. Some good friends, but also sometimes walked into some disgusting people. One time a person asked me to cam and i turned on my camera, and he turned on his. The camera was pointed at his shirt. I could tell he was holding the webcam as it was shaky. I laughed and said "can i see your face?". I remember his hesitation. He started flicking his webcam downwards and i didn't understand what was happening "?". Then he pointed the camera straight at his dick for a few seconds, to then flip it back up and point it at his face. He was probably in his 30s, bald, he smiled. I immediately ended the call there. Told him he was a disgusting individual to do this to an underage person and blocked him. 

Truth is, not everyone who did this to me knew my age, but when they did find out about my age they still didn't care. This man did know about my age, and didn't care. One man once asked me for a threesome with his girlfriend and i told him i was 14. He said "so what?". I told him he should be ashamed of himself and blocked him. I also once had a 23 year old lesbian asking me if she could see my boobs. I told her i was 13. She said "if you don't wanna show anything just tell me so i can delete you and move on". I told her to delete me.

Photo by Johan Bos from Pexels

Last night I was browsing Youtube and a video about the entire COPPA debacle was recommended to me. I had heard something about COPPA last week and Youtube's changes, but never really looked into it as it seemed like another change blown out of proportion (which it kind of is). I watched the video and didn't really learn much more so I watched another video, and another, and another... and all of the video's had the same information and I became none the wiser, so I started doing my own investigation into COPPA and Youtube's changes. 

I went to certain news outlets who had covered it like the Verge, but again, felt like no one really did their research and everyone only had superficial information taken from two different sources, if not only just the one source.

So, I delved even deeper, and properly started to do my own research and I came across some information I found that I had to share.

Before we start, I am not an American citizen so all these rules and regulations are new to me. And also, if you think that websites like Youtube and Facebook don't let you sign up when you are under the age of 13 because "they care about the children": think again.

I started on FTC's own website: Complying with COPPA: Frequently Asked Questions. In here it states a lot of things, mainly vague things, but what stood out to me is that they kept repeating the following: collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13. And I think this explains what COPPA is and stands for: they want websites, online services, and mobile apps to not collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under 13. This seems mainly to protect children from targeted advertisements: recognizing that younger children are particularly vulnerable to overreaching by marketers and may not understand the safety and privacy issues created by the online collection of personal information. 

Very specific and weird rule, especially considering that the FTC does not seem to care about the rest of the population of the planet whose data gets mined and sold as if it's free real estate, but I will keep that for another future article.

But then something came to mind. When did the FTC implement these rules? It seems like a very recent development, but wait... it isn't. On the FTC website it states that the last time the COPPA FAQ was edited was on March 20, 2015.

I read the entire COPPA FAQ btw, and found out some more in-depth information which makes me believe that most content creators on Youtube wont be in trouble with the FTC directly (more on that later). That said tho, Youtube surely is going to make the life of many of their content creators very difficult after getting in trouble with the FTC this year: Google and YouTube Will Pay Record $170 Million for Alleged Violations of Children’s Privacy Law.

I would say read the press release I linked because it is a hoot. It basically describes how Youtube did not want to acknowledge that certain content creators, or parts of their website, were targeting kids. Yes, you read that right: Youtube, who literally has a YOUTUBE KIDS APP, who told their creators to be more "child-friendly" refused to acknowledge towards the FTC that their website provides content that are specifically targeting children. Oh boy. 

In the press release they also note that Youtube told big toy companies like Hasbro and Mattel in presentations that "YouTube is the “#1 website regularly visited by kids" and "YouTube is today’s leader in reaching children age 6-11 against top TV channels". I swear, I am not making this up.

Of course, someone caught wind of Youtube's misbehavior and reported it to the FTC, who investigated Youtube, and ultimately fined them for $170 million. Next to that, there is a proposed settlement that Youtube (and Google) have to implement a system "that permits channel owners to identify their child-directed content on the YouTube platform". The changes we see happening now are literally because of Youtube's incompetence to obey the law.

To complete my research I went to Wikipedia's "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act" entry. I found out that COPPA was enacted in 1998 and became effective in the year 2000. So this means that Youtube had almost 20 years to implement the COPPA rules, which is funny because Youtube only exists for 14 years. I don't know what amateur lawyers Youtube has hired, but wow, have they not been doing their job. 

Even Facebook acknowledged COPPA with our dear reptile king, Mark Zuckerberg, stating in 2011 that he is opposed to it (of course he is). Actually, many people find COPPA to be outdated. Youtube and Google could've acknowledged COPPA and probably worked together with the FTC and propose a more updated version, but since they'd rather just look away like a stubborn cat, and pretend it doesn't exist, all content creators are now going to pay for it.

What many people don't understand about COPPA, and one of the reasons why they are freaking out, is because COPPA is so damn vague. But after I did some more digging (cough comprehensive reading cough) I started to realize what it all exactly means.

What mainly got the ball in my head rolling was when I read this on their Wikipedia entry:

In February 2004, UMG Recordings, Inc. was fined US$400,000 for COPPA violations in connection with a web site that promoted the then 13-year-old pop star Lil' Romeo and hosted child-oriented games and activities, and Bonzi Software, which offered downloads of an animated figure "BonziBuddy" that provided shopping advice, jokes, and trivia was fined US$75,000 for COPPA violations.

But also looking into the FTC cases against the following companies:

The FTC has brought a number of actions against website operators for failure to comply with COPPA requirements, including actions against Girls' Life, American Pop Corn Company, Lisa Frank, Inc., Mrs. Fields Cookies, and The Hershey Company.[17]

When looking at all these examples I found out that the FTC was very specific about why they fined these companies; all these companies had something specific that would attract younger kids and harvest their data. Mrs. Fields and Hershey, for example, had websites mainly targeting general audiences. However, parts of Mrs. Fields site "offered birthday clubs for children 12 or under and provided birthday greetings" and Hershey had candy-related sites that were directed to children, and both failed to meet the COPPA standards to obtain parental consent to harvest the child's data.

All these companies could've evaded fines if they would've properly complied with COPPA's rules, but usually would half-ass it or knowingly hold on to personal information, instead of deleting it, of children under age 13 without first obtaining parental consent.

It is very clear that the FTC is mainly targeting companies who consciously hold on to data they have collected from children under the age of 13, or companies who consciously market to children under 13 but don't comply to COPPA.

To translate this back to Youtube I see it as this:

Does NOT have to comply with COPPA: A kid under the age of 13 might click on a Lets Play from a Youtuber because they recognize the game in the thumbnail. The video is just the Youtuber playing the game, being themselves, and talking like a normal person, maybe making adult jokes here and there.

Does have to comply with COPPA: A kid under the age of 13 will more likely click on a Lets Play from a Youtuber because the thumbnail is very colorful with animated characters that are mainly targeting children. The video is a younger Youtuber playing a game directed at children in a child-like manner and using simple or dumbed-down language.

I kind of failed to properly describe the does have to comply with COPPA one because to me it seems so clear that it is about content that is very clearly targeted towards kids, or content that can easily be confused as kids content. This is how I understand the FTC ruling. Youtube on the other hand is more vague on how they imply the FTC's ruling, and I think we have to wait and see how it plays out. I think overall most channels will be just fine.

In conclusion,

They start the article off by saying:


And continue with comparing numbers between male and female doctors and specialists. And even continue with racial biases. Of course the white male doctor earns more on average than the female doctor and racial pay gap is apparently also a thing, although they don't touch on that subject in the rest of the article.

The paragraph that comes after this is the most important because it reads:



Especially the last part here I find interesting because they literally explain the reasoning why women get paid less. There is no "pay gap". You essentially determined that yourself just by writing that one sentence. The funniest thing is that after this paragraph there is a sentence that says:


How do you mean other factors are likely at play? It is as clear as it is stated: men are more likely to gravitate toward high-paying areas within medicine. That literally seems like it is the main reason. Further in the article it is mentioned that some associate professor of dermatology at Harvard worked on an article about how to close this pay gap. She states that "there's a lot of implicit bias at play". And then gives an example that male colleagues were given better operating schedules. That is the only point that is made. But whether this quote is a personal anecdote or actually based on research is not made clear.

To me it seems that if you want to study gender pay gap between doctors you need to find a male doctor and a female doctor working at the same hospital doing the same job with the same specialties and then comparing their income. When it turns out the female doctor earns less, you need to look at all the variables at play like work times, specialties, and how many patients both doctors have. You can't just say male doctor 1 and female doctor 2 don't earn the same so it is gender pay gap. Do these people even know how proper research is conducted?

Look, I would love to believe in gender pay gaps, but I need to see hard evidence. Every single article I've read, every single research that is being done, just shows that there is bias, and most journalists take this opportunity to make outrageous headlines that are based on thin air. And since most people don't want to read the actual research or article, most people base their beliefs on clickbait titles and that is upsetting. Because if there is an actual gender pay gap we need to do something about it, but bias research like this one seemingly makes it very difficult to take any further research done on the subject serious.

They should've just called the article: The Gender Pay Gap for Doctors Seems To Have a Valid Reason. Here’s What That Reason Is. You're welcome time.com. You're a shitty website anyways with short, poorly researched articles. Don't know why I actually visited your website but alas, guess the clickbait is working.

We all know that Twitter is full with virtue signaling fairies, dragons, and snowflakes, but yesterday I started losing my patience when one exceptional creature tweeted this:

In short, this adult man is having an emotional breakdown over Trump. Not only that but he tweets about Trump on the daily, and now all of a sudden his PTSD worsens because of Trump and yet he surrounds himself only with Trump on Twitter. Talking about being stuck in a loop... And hey normally, I wouldn't care. It is just some twitter rando who probably thinks they are a good person when they pretend to be a good person on the internet. But this guy just pushed my buttons. I don't know if it was the added fact that he got so many (positive) replies, retweets, likes, or the fact that he has over 10k followers. I just got really annoyed. If this was a 16 year old kid, or it wouldn't have gotten so much traction, I would've probably still been annoyed, but I would've brushed it off. This guy is a fully grown adult seemingly making fun of PTSD and people are almost praising him for it. Now, I'm not saying he is "faking" his mental illnesses for attention.  I dug through the comments and he replies this to someone:

Ok ok, I get it, those are horrible events to go through, maybe not something one should share on the internet so casually but who am I to judge. But when such events happen to you, you get help, and you try to make yourself better. You can't stay stuck in a pity party feeling sorry for yourself all the time. Why is he even so obsessed over Trump's problems when he has so many problems in his own life? To me it seems he has some type of mental deficiency cause there is no way in heck his mental problems make him this brainless. But then when I read a bit more through his comments he claims he is a mental health professional. For real?

So by his own words he is depressed, suffers from PTSD and agoraphobia, hasn't slept well since 1992, and he is a mental health professional. But he thinks it is a good idea to put himself in harm's way by surrounding himself with stressful news which worsens his mental health?! Not only that but he makes something that isn't about him in the slightest, about himself and his mental problems... What an ignorant POS.

It seems that he is some type of mental health masochist where he likes to inflict copious amounts of stress upon himself so it worsens his mental state of mind? What the fuck is wrong with this man. Being mentally ill is one thing, PTSD is a shitnugget to deal with, but you are just pity partying yourself and it's tragic as you are a fully grown man. He is mentally cutting himself. 

His problem seems to be with Trump's "racist" wall, which is all good and well, most people hate that wall anyways. But why is he so affected by it? He is sitting high and dry in his house, mind him, in his closet. He has food, water, shelter, electricity; and he reads about Trumps' stupid wall on the internet (I assume) and now he is throwing a pity party for himself in the closet crying that he is stuck in a loop because of a wall that is miles away and doesn't affect his personal life enough to destroy it.

It is one thing to show empathy towards your fellow human beings and feel bad about what Trump is doing with the wall, or be upset that he is squandering money. It is another thing to manchild-cry about it in your closet. I get it that he is a mentally ill individual, probably beyond depression, anxiety, and PTSD problems, and I shouldn't "prey upon the weak" or whatever. But he has 10k followers. His twitter is public. He obviously likes the attention. So here is some.

Besides all that, the positive reinforcement he got for that tweet made me sick. So many people wishing him well~ and even people sharing their own story of how "Trump is triggering or worsening their mental health". Luckily there were a few people who laughed at Chris his tweet, and a few people questioned his sanity. I replied to one of these tweets and as a result I got blocked by Chris since well... pointing out the truth makes you a bad guy I guess.

In closing,

I am going to address this towards Chris: you are garnering attention towards yourself about the wall, while the wall isn't about you. You aren't directly affected. The wall isn't hurting you. Stop putting the attention on yourself. Why are you talking about it on the internet pretending like you are the victim in all of this. If you care so much about that fucking wall being build maybe do some more "activism" beyond crying in your fucking closet like a 16 year old child who just lost a Fortnite game. Everyone has their own struggles in life, that's what life is about. Work on your goddamn mental health and stop throwing pity parties. This wall isn't about you.

Ahh yisss, remakes... the boogeyman of film lovers. This boogeyman visited my twitter feed last weekend as it came to my attention that the beloved horror classic Suspiria (1977) has fallen victim to it and will be in theaters rather soon. 

Yes, yes. You loved the Suspiria (2018) trailer, I know, I know. Most people did. I am not hating on the Suspiria remake because I disliked the trailer. I actually thought it didn't look too bad, but more on that later. I am hating the new Suspiria movie for very different reasons.

I don't think anyone would argue with me if I would say that the original Suspiria movie is a visual experience, because it is. The set design, the way it was shot, the colors; the entire visual experience per scene is different and really sets the mood of every scene. Many people would, however, argue that it lacks a plot, but I guess it makes up for it being beautifully stylized. The original is art, no doubt about that. So why a remake?


As far as I can tell Luca Guadagnino, the director of the 2018 Suspiria, wanted to re-imagine the story of the horror classic. That's cool, I guess. But for me it comes with so many questions. Almost everyone knows (and Guadagnino knows this too) that the original can't be topped. "If you can't top the original, do something different" is something that someone commented on reddit. That's all fine and well, but that makes no sense. If you can't top the original, why remake it? It is obvious that this is just another pointless remake. Based on the trailer it doesn't look, or feel, like the original at all. And if it is a so-called "homage", or whatever, why call it Suspiria?

As I said before, the original is a visual experience. Whenever someone mentions the original movie I think about bright colors and beautifully stylized sets. When I compare the thoughts and feelings that I get when thinking about Suspiria (1977) with what I saw during the Suspiria (2018) trailer is vastly different, and I would want to argue that it is therefore unfair to call it a remake, or for the movie to even adopt the name of the original.

What I don't like about most remakes is that they do not capture what the original wanted to do, in this case giving a visual experience, and I am scared it will overshadow the original. Not a lot of people outside of the horror and/or movie enthusiasts club have heard of the original Suspiria, which, I guess, makes it kind of a cult classic. Now that they are remaking it with Hollywood/famous actors, hyping it up like crazy, it has already overshadowed the original in many ways. A lot of casual moviegoers will probably see this in the movie theater being completely unaware of the original. and when they do find out there is an original out there, they wont like it, as it is so vastly different from the remake. And that makes me sad, that these people will never be able to appreciate the original for what it is.

One of the movies that also pissed me off last year, riding on the coattails of an old-school name, is Jumanji. Nothing about the new Jumanji screamed Jumanji. It was a totally stand-alone film that didn't feel like it had anything to do with the original. But let's just piggyback off of the older generations and their nostalgia. We have so many remakes and unoriginal stories. Why can't we make something original, is it that difficult? Why can't we just be inspired and create our own classics?

Jumanji was, I believe, a movie many kids loved from their childhoods. Why can't they just make their own Jumanji, why steal a name and then trying to make it your own?

But enough about Jumanji, this is about Suspiria.

In closing

Based on the trailer Suspiria (2018) doesn't look like a bad movie. I just think it would've been better if it had come up with its own name, instead of relying so heavily on it being a "remake" (these were also the words of a redditor). The trailer looked decent, but had nothing to do with the original Suspiria. It looks like a lot of other horror movies who use muted palettes. Suspiria (1977) was a stunning original movie because it was so different from all other movies; it wasn't scared to throw bright colors in your face, even tho the story itself was very dark. This 2018 adaption should've just used its own name and take pride in the fact that it was heavily inspired by Suspiria (1977). Excited to be disappointed once this hits theaters.

Short version: The movie is boring for more "experienced" movie goers, but might be somewhat entertaining to easily entertained or startled people. Don't expect anything special tho.

Escape Room (2017) starts out as a pretty interesting movie; two Arabic looking guys are in a desert burying a mysterious box... and then they die. Followed by a long ass intro. Movies really need to stop doing this. The movie then shifts from the desert to an urban looking environment. We get introduced to the first two characters in the movie and from that point on you can tell how high the level of acting in this movie is going to be. 

Around the 11 minute mark there is a cheap jump scare attempt that adds nothing to the movie at all and wont scare anyone because it isn't scary. Around this time I also realized how low the color saturation for this movie was. The main character then goes into this creepy looking store looking for authentic stuff. The lady who owns the store is trying to be all mysterious and vague about the authentic stuff in her store but honestly comes off as freaking weird and I just want to slap her silly. The guy then explains that he owns an escape room and wants to have special stuff to be different~ from the competition. His eye falls on an item behind the lady. It is the mysterious box we saw the two Arabic dudes burying in the desert. A scene follows where the guy is literally eye fucking the box, and obviously wants it really, really badly. The lady starts talking about the "history" of the box and tells us its very, very original name: *･ﾟ☆THE SKULL BOX☆ﾟ･*. And at this point in the movie I got annoyed and confused:

So, this lady starts talking how evil this box is and that you can’t open it and she wants to keep it save, right? Then why does she literally have the box standing on a table behind her?!?!? Anyone has access to it!!! She could maybe bump into it one day and the box opens and then what? Shouldn’t she keep it somewhere save? Even if she thinks it's unnecessary to keep it safe, why is she telling him all about this box? Why doesn’t she just say “hey hi yea this is a family heirloom wont sell this sorry”. Instead she spills all its secrets!! All I could think was “bitch why you tell him about the box?”.

The shop owner lady then conveniently gets a phone call so she walks away from the box, she picks up the phone and she starts quoting the Gremlins movie?? I still don’t know what that was about. It wasn’t witty or cute, it was goddamn confusing. When she walks back to the counter the dude obviously stole the box. I mean… really? We then get introduced to the other characters in this movie (a group of 4 friends) and I was hoping that they would be a bit more decent when it comes to acting but I was genuinely disappointed. And then the movie honestly falls apart. Barely halfway in and I couldn’t be more bored; You know the acting is never going to get better, the only interesting thing was the box which we already know everything about now, and we know these 4 friends are going to be locked into an escape room with the box. It can’t get more predictable than that.

Once they have entered the escape room nothing happens. They try to solve puzzles but this one girl keeps complaining how bored she is. And then when the first guy dies the movie is literally about 3 people, a dead guy, and an evil guy being stuck in a room. That’s it. They aren’t doing anything. They are just there and it isn’t scary. Yeah, the bad guy looks kinda creepy, and he is supposed to be a demon or something, but he doesn’t give off any demon vibes. The only thing I’m scared off are the scissors he is holding most of the movie.

Escape Room felt like a waste of time. There were no good moments except for the desert intro which honestly kind of reminded me of Jumanji (1995). The concept of Escape Room was interesting, but the story sucked and it was also poorly executed. This movie should’ve taken notes from movies like Exam (2009) and Buried (2010) where the characters are also stuck in the same “room” the entire time. In the movie Exam the room has different elements and the characters have depth. In the movie Buried you are constantly on the edge of your seat because of all the different variables that can prevent the main character from ever getting out alive. In Escape Room you have nothing, just people in a room freaking out.

2 out of 10 stars**