I don’t like to begin my reviews by being this blunt, but I wouldn’t want to bury the lead. This movie is terrible. The script is bad. The acting is bad. The single location where they shot the movie is woefully bland.
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However, here at Movieshyte, we know that, even though a movie is *bad*, it can still be *interesting*. Does “The Paradise Murders” qualify? Let’s take a look!
So, we’ll use the obvious starting line: Our heroine, Emma. Every introduction to creative writing class will tell you that the engine that drives your story is the change in your main character. How do they start the story, and how do they end it? Getting from that point A to point B is the whole shebang, the reason you’re spinning your yarn. This even applies to horror movies. Why is the final girl being hunted? I’m not talking the physical, plot reason (which frequently boils down to “she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time”), but what is the *spiritual* reason the killer is after her? What problem did she need to solve before the shit went down? What void did she need to fill? Those are the questions that need answering, as much as “how will she get away?” or “why the @#$! did she leave the gun there? It was RIGHT there, why didn’t she pick it up?!?!?”.
We learn Emma’s problem in the first scene. Her husband, Jake. suggests that they go to this resort for their anniversary, and Emma says “I can’t... I have work.”
She has work. THAT’S her problem. She’s a *modern woman*. It makes sense. “The Paradise Murders” is a production of the Lifetime network. While I don’t watch it much (or ever), I know that Lifetime has two major components: Empowered women and true crime. So... I guess it’s women being empowered until they are brutally murdered. So Emma is an empowered woman, and she would rather honor her job than honor her husband’s wishes. These modern women in the workforce... Don’t they know that women were much, MUCH happier when they were staying at home, cleaning the house and looking after the kids?
By the way, that argument has as much merit as any argument about happiness: None. Because WE CAN’T MEASURE HAPPINESS. Any study about “happiness” is based either on bullshit made metrics that are attributed a “happiness score”, like wealth, for example (although it’s ALSO a myth that wealthy people are happier), OR they are based on self-reported happiness. Scrolling though a bunch of vacay pics from dipshits on insta tells me people are GREAT at self-reporting happiness. Because the overwhelming need to convince everybody on the internet that your vacation is amazing obviously means that IT IS. So, if you read a study that says Norway is the happiest country on earth, just throw it away. Norway can fuck off. Give me Djibouti. It’s got “booty” right there in name. What is happier than that?!?!!?
But, we have our character arc to track! Emma values work more than marriage. Presumably, she will be punished for this hedonistic choice.
The punishment starts immediately, as Jake convinces Emma to go to the resort despite whatever pressing work matters she has (we don’t actually know what she does, and, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter, because whatever it is, it is preventing her from staying at home and fulfilling her husband’s every need). The gaslighting is already starting. Jake has a Rizz score of approximately -7378397484379. When he talks, he has no emotion, and stares off into the distance like he’s reading dialogue off of cuecards. How on earth is Emma with him? Well... It’s because she has to be. She can be modern enough to have independent means of support, but NOT modern enough to actually be independent. She needs a man. Jake is a man. He’s there. Ergo... The fact that he convinces her to do anything, let alone ignore her precious job to go on an anniversary trip with him, means he’s already controlling her mind and/or driving her insane.
So we get to the resort, and we get to gaslighting moment #2: Jake declares it’s the most awesome bed he’s ever seen, and jumps into it. At this point, his feet are dangling off the edge of the bed, because it’s about a foot and half too short for him. Does this mean that the prop person couldn’t be bothered to find a bed that isn’t sized for the lollipop guild? NO!!! It means Jake is playing 5D chess. By telling Emma that a bed that is clearly terrible and too short for him is the greatest bed ever, he is already making her question reality itself.
Then some people get murdered. Strangely, this doesn’t seem to affect the booking of the resort AT ALL. You would think that, if multiple guests at the resort had been KILLED over the span of a few days... Maybe people would check out? Not want to stay there? There are people around, so it doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Plot stuff happens. A detective constantly threatens to take Emma “down to the station”, but it’s the emptiest threat of all time, because if they can’t even afford a normal sized bed, there’s no @#$!ing way they’re affording a POLICE STATION shoot for a couple of scenes. Emma suspects Jake, but it turns out the killer is this dude who knew her as kid, even though he has an Irish accent. Was he topping off a bit o’ the blarney stone between taking creepy photos of Emma when they were kids? Probably.
The point is, Jake is innocent (which makes sense, because conforming to “traditional values” doesn’t seem so valuable when it means you have to boink a serial killer) and Emma lives. The hero’s journey is complete when, in the final scene, Emma gets a phone call, and she looks at her phone and says, “It’s just work. It’s not important” and she puts the phone away.
Has Emma fully shed the shackles of modernity? Not entirely. She still has a job, which is all too modern, but she realizes that her negative rizz terrible husband is more important. She is one step closer to becoming the homemaker he dreams of, and that’s all we can ask in the span of a 83 minute feature film.
Now, as I said earlier... I don’t watch much Lifetime. But... If their empowered women are constantly being killed... And here, they are showing you Emma, who decides to reject the modern trappings of her job and embrace her obligation to her shitty husband... It seems a little subversive to me. Like maybe the “empowering” message they are pushing is actually a WARNING that being empowered leads to being murdered, and maybe being more ‘traditional’ means you get to stay alive. Hmmm... I see you, Lifetime! I see what you’re doing!
As Movieshyte, I must remain 100% neutral ad objective, and therefore I will not comment on the ethics or morality of the Lifetime model of empowered women.
It seems a little sketch.
7/10