Review: Why?

Director: Corbin Timbrook

Screenplay: Corbin Timbrook

Year: 2021

Blake is a young writer who is going through writer’s block that is not allowing her to move forward with her work. Her boyfriend proposes to spend a few days in a cabin in the woods so that they can both relax. What should have been a relaxing time turns into a fight for their lives as a killer with a long list of murders to his name starts roaming the place.

“Why?” starts with a couple of scenes in which we see the killer perpetrating some horrible murders, and almost immediately, we start questioning the reason for these actions. The deaths are not innovative, and rather they seem to be a copy of deaths we have seen in the “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” franchises, and the practical effects that accompany them border the campy.

The similarities with “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” are no coincidences, as “Why?” doesn’t develop its own ideas and prefers to use several cliches from these movies. Young people having sex killed for no apparent reason, a towering and slow villain that seems to be everywhere, the final girl, and some other cliches are part of the story in the defective scrip from screenwriter and director Corbin Timbrook (“Do You See Me”). This is accompanied by uninteresting and awfully developed characters that end up being the perfect recipe for a disaster of a movie.

Now that I mention the script, this is undoubtedly the biggest problem of this movie. From long scenes where nothing happens and seem to be there just to stretch the runtime and create some tension, failing miserably in the last one, to a  plot that makes no sense, it is impossible to become interested in the characters or the plot. Only questions over questions arise about why things are happening, and none are answered. Only the villain is somewhat interesting, but the lack of information we get about him and his motivation doesn’t help his development.

“Why?” is an unfocussed slasher that uses all the genre cliches in a senseless plot that ends up being a boring and soulless movie. Only the villain is slightly interesting, but his horrible development, as well as with the rest of the characters, sentence him to ostracism. Long scenes where nothing happens, too many failed attempts at creating tension, and practical effects that are almost campy are just some of the minor problems of the movie, that doesn’t even compare with the huge issue of a script that doesn’t bother to answer any question, establish a motive, or at least give us a character that we can care about. There is not much that can be said in favor of this movie.