Quartile rating: 6/10 · 3 ratings
When tech billionaire Slater King meets cocktail waitress Frida at his fundraising gala, he invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. But despite the epic setting, beautiful people, ever-flowing champagne, and late-night dance parties, Frida can sense that there’s something sinister hiding beneath the island’s lush façade.
Blink Twice is a competent directorial debut from Zoë Kravitz that tackles serious themes of sexual exploitation and gaslighting within a glossy thriller framework. The plot effectively builds dread through Frida's growing unease on the island, though the mystery unravels somewhat predictably once the horror becomes explicit. The ensemble cast — Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, and Alia Shawkat among them — delivers solid performances, though characterization is often thin beyond archetypes. Cinematography captures the paradise-as-trap aesthetic adequately without being particularly inventive. Novelty is moderate: the Me Too allegory filtered through a vacation-horror lens has some freshness, but the rape-revenge arc follows familiar beats once the premise is revealed. The ending feels rushed and somewhat unsatisfying — the cathartic revenge is tonally uneven and the dark-comedy register clashes with the gravity of what preceded it, leaving the resolution feeling less earned than the setup deserved.