My quick rating – 2.7/10. God of This Age starts with some dude named Jason (Cory Burdette) driving down the road when a girl suddenly runs in front of his car. He slams on the brakes and avoids hitting her, which is probably the most competent decision anyone makes in this movie. There is also an absolutely ridiculous amount of smoke or fog everywhere, because apparently this particular stretch of road is located inside a haunted vape shop.
Jason follows the girl, who promptly disappears while pointing toward an RV. Then Jason gets bashed over the head and dragged inside.
Title screen. Then drone footage. And because this is a low-budget movie with absolutely no shame, the drone itself is visible while filming the drone footage. Nothing says “cinematic masterpiece” quite like watching the cameraman’s camera.
Friday rolls around, and it’s game night. Michelle (Katie Sengupta) has invited a bunch of friends over to play a mysterious new game called God of This Age. There’s just one tiny problem. She hasn’t actually played it!
Who does this? “Hey guys, come over tonight! I’ve got this weird game nobody knows anything about. I haven’t opened it, I don’t know what it does, and I have no idea where it came from. Drinks are in the fridge!” For all she knows, it’s a single-player text adventure.
Michelle is easily the dumbest person in the room, and that’s saying something because the movie has assembled a cast of people who apparently abandoned common sense years ago.
The game is “creepy.” Everything is “creepy.” Michelle says creepy so often that you could turn this movie into a drinking game. Unfortunately, that would probably make the movie considerably more enjoyable.
And then…not much happens.
Michelle just kind of paces around her house, being scared for most of the time, having the same look on her face as someone who’s seen Smile too many times and thought to themselves, “Hey, I can do that.” Oddly enough, her friends seem to be afraid of her as well, when all she does is walk around looking constipated and confused.
The acting is dreadful. The characters are annoying. And the horror is practically nonexistent. If you’re looking for fun low-budget horror, keep looking. This isn’t scary. It’s a youth group sermon with a runtime.
Eventually, the message becomes painfully obvious – technology is watching you, your phones are evil, Big Tech is coming for you, and apparently the answer is God. George Orwell was warning us about this shit decades ago, but apparently God of This Age needed 75 minutes to explain it while making absolutely nothing happen.
The whole movie feels like what happens when a youth pastor discovers smartphones and decides to write Black Mirror after watching three episodes of Supernatural. Special effects by Instagram. Suspense by PowerPoint. Acting by people who appear to have been promised pizza afterward.
There are no thrills, barely any horror, no satisfying payoff, and naturally, a sequel tease at the end. Because apparently one God of This Age wasn’t enough. Stupid. Don’t waste your time.
