PopHorror Let's Get Scared
I’m a huge fan of prison movies. I just enjoy watching them. It’s a scary situation. Prison is a place nobody wants to be, more so in real life because it’s far from the idea of movies. Hearing real life prison stories can destroy a person’s soul. Prisoners who get out try to better themselves, but it seems they sometimes follow same pattern of ending up back in prison because they either can’t break the habit or fear they can’t make it in society. The movie I want to talk about today is The Five Rules of Success from the director Orson Oblowitz (The Queen of Hollywood Blvd. 2018)
Plot:
An enterprising ex-convict overcomes tragedy by designing a modern-day guide to success for a society that failed him.
The Five Rules of Success caught me off guard. The film has amazing direction and acting from Santigao Segura (47 Meters Down 2017 – read our review here) as lead character, X. It plays like more of a drama while flirting with horror elements. There are scenes of violence as well as tense situations, but for the greater part of the film, it is a drama.
The opening sequence warns of flashing lights, and if anyone can’t handle it, do not watch it. I assumed this was going to pertain towards a club scene with music, but it’s not all that heavy.
The director does move at a fast pace in The Five Rules of Success. Some may not enjoy this, making it feel off or just cliché, but I feel it helps the movie a lot, helping the progress of the character development. At times, the camera has a tight fixture on a character’s face or scene, and it builds the tension up a lot more.
Overall, The Five Rules of Success is a journey from the POV of a man who left a physical prison only to still be held back by the shackles of society judging him, sentencing him, and leaving him deeper in the hole. At times, this film is heartbreaking, loving, romantic, and even terrifying. I couldn’t help but watch and be intrigued. I felt like I was X, in the same shoes with him, as if it’s my journey too. The film is a great story for this year and is worth watching.
As stated before, there are scenes of horror in The Five Rules Of Success. The violence that X encounters as a child, told in a very dark scene, builds up the tension the character endured in his life. He left a lasting impression of a stoic life but eventually released his inner rage out onto the world. I want to say that can be justified, but in reality, it doesn’t excuse his actions nor does it redeem him. It simply mimics the everyday struggles an ex-con can face when trying not to go back to their old ways. With topics of sexuality, drug use, respect, and even meltdowns, we see that the rules can be broken when X is trying to follow them. Can any of us every say that we follow every rule in life? I strongly urge you to watch The Five Rules of Success and follow the careers of the director Orson Oblowitz and Santiago Segura.
