Take Back the Night (2021) User Reviews

Bigfoot Rapist

[billcr12 · 3/10 · 14 October 2022]

An interesting premise goes downhill after a promising start. Emma Fitzpatrick is very good as the star here. Jane is an artist with some severe mental problems.

She is at a party where she drinks heavily and takes some unknown drugs and after a quickie in a bathtub, she ventures out into an alley and is set upon by a Bigfoot type of creature who cuts her up. The injuries are thought to be self inflicted by the LAPD, including the requisite lesbian detective.

It becomes more and more unbelievable by the minute as Jane becomes an internet sensation by posting her story with updates on her attack.

The last few minutes are ridiculous and the talented Ms. Fitzpatrick is wasted here. The rating of three is only for her.

The supernatural mistake.

[midnightmosesuk · 4/10 · 1 April 2023]

Very mild spoilers ahead.

I'm not going to reiterate the plot here, plenty of other reviewers on here have described it far better than I could.

I just don't think this film worked, introducing a supernatural element into it worked against any message it might have been trying to impart to it's audience about sexual assault and the treatment of women after the fact.

If a woman says she's been assaulted by an actual monster of course people are going to be skeptical. Let's be honest, even with the best intentions in the world, at best the police and your friends are going to think you're confused, at worst that you're lying your arse off or mad as a lorry. Making the attacker supernatural just makes the disbelief a legitimate response to the horror the victim went through.

If it was an actual real man it would've worked better. Then the disbelief would be unjust, the use of her past against her unfair and her behavior that night irrelevant.

Anyway, written by lesbians, performed by lesbians and directed, presumably, by a lesbian. Make of that what you will. The patriarchy remains untoppled.

Let It Be Known, All High Scores For This Movie Are Fake Fluff Ratings

[Fox_Prime · 3/10 · 3 February 2023]

Ok so, here we go. I tried reading and looking at some of the other reviews and they're just all way off-key I'm sorry not sorry to say. One talks about the lead protagonist having "severe" mental issues, no she didn't! Her MOM had the severe mental issues! They touch base briefly about her having a stint at a psych hospital but in an interview she elaborates on this as she checked herself in due to stress of losing her mom, even though they also made clear her mom tried to kill her when she was a teenager by attempting to down her. So yeah, MOM had the severe mental disorders, not Jane.

Now that that's all cleared up, on to why this movie only gets 3 stars. I read in a other review that this was an all female written, directed, and even acted movie. There is a "guy" in it if you will, but you never see who he is, she just randomly meets him and bangs him in the bathroom at her art show party and of course he happens to be married. There's a lot and I mean A LOT of female/feminist bias all through out this entire movie. What a shocker right? Written, directed, and a full cast of females? Kinda wouldn't expect anything less am I right?

So I'm going along and the movies not so bad. It touches on real life issues and scenarios that real female victims of assault deal with after the fact. The Evidence Kit that they have to endure, people not believing them, and even the lesbian cop, oh excuse me, "detective" as she likes to point out and correct everyone in the movie through the ENTIRE movie. Yeah that doesn't get old or anything, doesn't believe her.

So, towards the end, the "monster" which I must say is the absolute, worst, garbage piece of you know what CGI monster I've EVER seen in my entire life thus far. It's not even scary looking! In fact, it looks like nothing! It's just this black mass with a mouth, normal flat not scary crooked teeth and three glowing eyes? And the eyes aren't even set, they just kinda blob and float around the empty black mass that's supposed to be this things face I'm guessing? I dunno but it's awful! So just lackluster and lazy and unoriginal and uncreative that it's kinda funny that the protagonist is this local semi famous artist/influencer and yet whoever designed this monster and I use the word designed VERY loosely, clearly didn't and doesn't have a single creative bone in their body.

So, she's running from the "monster" at the end and she's hiding. Well she finally hides in a barrel full of water, don't ask cause I dunno, they're on the rooftop of the building her flat is in, and yeah movies, and she's ready to finally make a sneak attack on this thing, oh, btw she found these old books talking about and describing the "monster" that was after her and it also told her a way to kill it so she had this knife/dagger made that would supposedly be able to kill the monster. Anywho she jumps out of the water filled barrel and raises her little knife/dagger up over her head with both hands, which completely makes her open and vulnerable to attack and guess what happens? That's right she gets attacked before she can do anything, the monster grabs her by her throat and she drops her weapon and the monster proceeds to shove her head under water, just like what her mom did to her when she was a teenager, and holds her there until we are lead to believe she's dead.

Cut screen and now the monster is dragging her lifeless body across the ground as she sputters up some water and magically comes back to life. Also amazingly enough, she somehow managed to retrieve her knife/dagger that she dropped behind her head when the monster grabbed her throat, all while unconscious I might add, AND hold onto it! That's right! She magically had the knife/dagger back in her hand! Only to have the monster step on her wrist and make her drop it again! Are you freaking serious? So not only did you destroy the continuity of what was going on at that point, you destroyed it and then had it lead to nothing?!? At this point I was just done and well in all honesty headed here to write this review.

So, unless you're a hardcore left wing lala-liberal feminist, I'd skip this one cause, it's not even scary and I think it's beyond ignorant what they claim as "horror" movies these days, this being one of those examples.

One ridiculous film.

[LordCommandar · 2/10 · 29 August 2021]

A women is sexually assaulted by a supernatural entity and one minute she's believed then her story falls apart and she's now accused of making up the whole assualt. The entity comes back to finish the job, she is now believed again by the detective working the case, who ends up dead (no spoilers on how) and her and her sister are accused of cop killing and end up fugitives on the run. An entire gay female cast, and a story that ends nonsensical. In short....one ridiculous film.

Yeah

[Timothynorris · 1/10 · 22 July 2023]

Poorly acted, poorly written agenda driven and those are the good points. Agenda driven is fine, but only for a decent movie. Low points for an unlikable heroine. Where is this city that has no men. Or at least men without faces.

Some of the dialog was stilted and unreal feeling.

I wasn't going to use the word woke, but my god a sledgehammer is more subtle. Oh, the narration during the changing of a tire, for her "non-binary beauties " refriggingdiculos. Right on cue our monster shows-up and she continues filming and the narrative for her confrontation with her attacker from earlier.

Unwatchable. 1 star, I would not recommend.

Take a place by the burning dumpster...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 14 November 2022]

Right, well I had not heard about this 2021 horror movie titled "Take Back the Night" before now, late in 2022, as I stumbled upon it by sheer luck. Seeing it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

Writers Gia Elliot and Emma Fitzpatrick might have had something interesting in means of concept, but the transition from script to screen didn't make for an impressive movie. Sure, there were elements of the storyline that were interesting, but the overall impression of "Take Back the Night" is that of a dumpster fire. The storyline is cluttered, erratic and all over the place. So director Gia Elliot wasn't exactly bringing the ship safely to harbor.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough, just a shame that the actresses and actors virtually had nothing solid to work with in terms of script, character gallery and dialogue.

The storyline was not appealing to me, and it was a difficult movie to suffer through. And it didn't help much that the character gallery had a lot of very dislikable characters in it. Personally I am not keen on vloggers and people constantly filming themselves for putting online, but when the main character in "Take Back the Night" kept filming herself while she was being attacked, I was good and ready to turn off the movie.

For a horror movie, then "Take Back the Night" was a swing and a miss. Well, unless you consider such an ill-constructed storyline to be horror, then you're in luck.

My rating of "Take Back the Night" lands on a very generous two out of ten stars. This is not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this so you don't have to.

Hysteria driven money grab

[gamerz-18042 · 1/10 · 3 October 2022]

This movie is so ridiculous I don't even know where to start. When 'The Guardian' run feminist tabloid gives it a 2/5, you just know you're in for an absolute shocker.

The film centers around a women attacked by a monster at night. Then goes on to portray some nonsensical explanations as to how she's not believed.

This all flows under an obvious disguise and allegory, that depicts men as the forever evil that must be bashed at every possible opportunity.

However in faith and much in like reality, the protagonist fails to divulge her facts correctly, forgets and covers herself in plot holes, including her own integrity.

The cast is mostly made of lesbians, and the directors political agenda is shoved in your face.

Decent mid-budget thriller

[aeongale · 6/10 · 15 March 2022]

Captures the good times of drinking and pills from the days of misspent youth really well. Glad my time was before social media ruined everything. Interesting story built around the "is this really happening" genre while offering some commentary on social issues, it goes to some dark place and gets fairly intense. My only criticism, as seen here, would be the current trend of directors changing the shot angle every 5 seconds, too much imagery to process.

Surprisingly good authentic horror with a critical message for today

[tmaves · 9/10 · 23 October 2021]

Take it for what it is - an interesting story line, beautiful authentic acting, and a new way to highlight how women are subjected to doubt based on their past and current actions and how they can lose their support system after sexual assault. This movie is way deeper than it appears and deserves attention and discussion. The director and main actor has a bright future.

Interesting choices

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 4 October 2021]

Take Back the Night makes a pretty astounding choice as its main character Jane Doe isn't completely heroic. I'll explain in a moment.

She's just finished her first art show, selling every work she's created and enjoying the benefits of being a social media influencer and young person in the middle of a hustling and bustling art scene. She even helps a few people in much worse shape than her get home, but when it's her time to leave, she's all alone and in the exact situation women are warned to avoid. She walks down a dead end alley and gets assaulted.

By a dark cloud of smoke and flies, no less. So when the cops ask her to detail what happened, she keeps referring to her attacker as it. But she also discovers that despite claw marks across her stomach and enough physical damage to land her in the ER, she can't quite convince the police that she's a victim.

And here's where that narrative choice I began with kicks in.

Jane doesn't tell the cops every detail. And by claiming that she was attacked by a monster - and not a man - her family's past issues of mental problems come back in a bad way. Even her sister fails to believe her, but that may be because Jane doesn't exactly go about things the right way. She demands attention, she rallies her social media followers, she goes to the news when the cops can't help her. And the thing is, she just may be relishing all of the attention.

This film makes a big shot though by naming itself after an organization, by tacking a hot button issue and by having a heroine who is not always reliable. That's fascinating, because this movie could have very much been a simple I Spit on Your Grave thriller instead of a movie that associates the lack of memory that assault causes and associates it with a monstrous shadow. The police and the way they handle things are just as brutal, if not more, than the creature.

Director Gia Elliot and writer Emma Fitzpatrick have taken some chances here. I really like how everyone other than Jane Doe is only known by their role or their job, as the facelessness of this situation reduces everyone to their most basic roles. This is a movie that made me think love after it was over. That's the mark of a movie that works.

Power back

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 14 July 2023]

No pun intended - the movie is not about something .. well it is not about one thing I reckon is the right way to go about it and describe it. We have a woman, an influencer of sorts, who has a nightly encounter. Now many may say, well why is she alone, why this or why that ... that should not be the issue. Although I do have one issue of my own: the closing of the gate is completely unnecessary.

We do not have a .... culprit that you can "touch", that you can point to - with substance. It is an idea ... the movie gives us food for thought. It tells us about an evil that exists ... and it urges us to change the status quo. Since this is a small or low budget movie, it does have issues in that department, but it does try its best to still tell us the story as good as it can ... if you don't mind the downfalls, this is an interesting watch.

Gritty with a big heart

[kellywinters-54477 · 8/10 · 10 June 2022]

Feels like a throw back in a good way -- gritty, edgy, and dark. Not bogged down by high production value, but bolstered by incredible performances (Fitzpatrick especially) and an important message. Perhaps schools should show this to boys in sex ed????????

Refreshing!

[PattonReviews · 10/10 · 10 June 2022]

This isn't a big budget movie, but it had all the right pieces to keep you thinking. I think the concept of this movie was fantastic and the performance by the lead really brought it all together. In fact I think the acting all around was really good.

Great commentary on rape culture and victim blaming in America

[griffiths-brent · 8/10 · 10 February 2023]

The reviews downplaying this movie must be the same people who blame the victim.

The sound, camera, and lighting quality are amateur.

The acting is decent.

The dialogue and plot are actually superb.

Every day victims are belittled, ignored, and accused on lying about being assaulted or raped. This film demonstrates the emotional toll one takes and the hurdles they must overcome just to report an assault, let alone going through the court system.

This artsy cultural commentary deserves higher praise and should be used to spread awareness rather than being fodder for those in the privileged and ignorant position to deny.

Gripping film

[doujyr · 8/10 · 13 March 2022]

I remember seeing Emma Fitzpatrick about 10 years ago in The Collector and thinking what a good looking actress we'll be seeing a lot more of her (I don't recall her being quite so well endowed! Lol). Disappointingly few appearances since then. She does a great job in this role and the plot just keeps you guessing all the way. Could well become a cult classic.

What's even scarier than being attacked by a monster?

[marioBonifacio · 9/10 · 5 March 2022]

Gia Elliot's monster movie, "Take back the night," brings the genre to new heights - and deeply unsettling depths.

Because the key encounter with the monster happened so early and because the protagonist remained mired in an ominous cloud, I stayed on edge wondering what even worse encounter could follow such a gruesome attack 10 minutes in? In other words, what's even scarier than being attacked by a monster?

As Jane (Whose increasing frustrations are portrayed well by Emma Fitzpatrick) struggles to find relief with the police, media, family, and social media conspire to slowly pick apart her story to the point that I honestly started to doubt the thing I had literally seen a half-hour prior.

When she's dragged the furthest away from her answers is when our answer starts to take shape: What's even scarier than being attacked by a monster? Being attacked and then being forced to re-live that attack while everyone treats you like the criminal, tells you it didn't happen, and even if it did, you deserved it.

A few other details: The monster sequences manage to be terrifying and yet, disturbingly beautiful in their choreography. At a svelte 90 minutes, the movie is exactly as long as it needs to be.

Brilliant

[angela-gulner · 10/10 · 15 September 2021]

And powerful. All female team with a female monster and great scares!