Population 436 is yet another piece of evidence for the theory that suspense film writers think that everyone who goes to a movie theatre is stupid.
It starts off with a strange idea; there's a town that always has the exact same population (436, obviously), year after year and year. Most people in the audience would have figured out why this is within the first few minutes of the movie. I mean, there are only two or three possible explanations and the movie makes it painfully obvious which one is correct.
That would be fine, except that the writers apparently thought that we wouldn't realize what was happening until they told us outright. You can see how they struggled to keep everything suspenseful and mysterious, and it's almost sad to know that they went to so much trouble when the movie revealed its greatest secret in the first five minutes. Don't think that the clumsily deployed mystery is the only thing bad about Population 436. It features many of the other staples (well, clichés) of the horror/suspense genre: freaky religious cults, ominous gas stations (of DOOM!) and enough weird inconsistencies to be almost terrifying if the movie wasn't so risible.
Personally, I wouldn't spend any money going to see this movie. Encyclopedia Brown is more clever and suspenseful, and you get him at the library for free.
It starts off with a strange idea; there's a town that always has the exact same population (436, obviously), year after year and year. Most people in the audience would have figured out why this is within the first few minutes of the movie. I mean, there are only two or three possible explanations and the movie makes it painfully obvious which one is correct.
That would be fine, except that the writers apparently thought that we wouldn't realize what was happening until they told us outright. You can see how they struggled to keep everything suspenseful and mysterious, and it's almost sad to know that they went to so much trouble when the movie revealed its greatest secret in the first five minutes. Don't think that the clumsily deployed mystery is the only thing bad about Population 436. It features many of the other staples (well, clichés) of the horror/suspense genre: freaky religious cults, ominous gas stations (of DOOM!) and enough weird inconsistencies to be almost terrifying if the movie wasn't so risible.
Personally, I wouldn't spend any money going to see this movie. Encyclopedia Brown is more clever and suspenseful, and you get him at the library for free.