The Columnist

Actually it was a great movie, but the reason I gave it a half a star because I think the ending was a horrible one, and so it ruined the entire movie for me. If you don't care about bad endings, you'll like this one.

The Columnist is an unusual smart slasher in that it makes the viewer think about the motivations of the killer and their paradoxes regarding issues of free speech and social media that the viewer can relate to (from near and far). More than that, it constructs and blends a series of moral oxymorons, which makes it interesting to watch in a thoughtful way.

The Columnist speaks loudly to the current social media landscape and it says it in a smart, twisted, fun, Dutch dark comedy. Katja Herbers (Evil) is entertaining to watch as Femke Boot, a newspaper columnist who embraces her darkest impulses, as she sinks deeper and deeper into the toxic world of online bullying.

I really liked this film because its so contemporary. Its very much a dark comedy - a dark comedy thriller/horror film perhaps. I imagine a lot of people, especially women, can relate to the main character getting annoyed by the numerous vile, mocking messages she sees online about herself, including threats of sexual violence and death. Its a film that directly references freedom of speech, with tthe womans daughter doing a piece at her secondary school about the importance of freedom of speech, while she quietly keeps an eye on who claims to plot what against her online. Numerous people tell her not to go on (or stay on) twitter, facebook and the like but, needless to say, she doesn't stay away for long. I think the 'pull' people feel towards even just glancing at such social media sites on a fairly regular basis, is something many people can relate to and most of us aren't famous journalists, or otherwise in the public eye. I've had things said about me in the past by others online and I've been annoyed by messages and the like but, again, suffice to say (honestly), I haven't exactly taken the law into my own hands. Of course there's a line to be drawn, both legally and generally, in terms of what may be acceptable or fair to do by way of a response to extreme hate based messages about yourself. Its quite a thought provoking film in that way. It does feature violence, suffice to say, although its not constant and extremely gory but it is a pretty bleak film in general, due to the themes it covers. I thought this film did well at highlighting an important issue (freedom of speech and how far it should be protected etc.) so I'd recommend it, yes.

Seriously, who hasn't wanted to hunt down some internet trolls. I'm not saying you should actually do it, but I'm sure the fantasy of at least scaring them has crossed all our minds at least once. The Columnist/De Kuthoer is one of those movies where you quickly end up cheering for the killer because these people aren't just trolls that poke some fun; no they are saying they know where she lives and they are threatening her and being extra awful. We quickly see how the addiction to social media does so much harm, but also how Femke seems to now be addicted to killing. The character development in this is wonderful. We see so many sides of Femke, the harm this addiction does to her, her boyfriend and her daughter; who is inspired by her mom and trying to speak out against issues regarding freedom of speech. There's a lot of irony in this with Femke silencing people for their words while also saying she supports free speech. Femke mostly writes a pretty neutral column, but she does end up getting a lot of hate because she is anti-Zwarte Piet/Black Pete. She's also under stress of deadlines from her publisher for a book she's writing. It seems the killing helps her with her writing though, so I guess that's good for her and sucks for the trolls?

It was different. Watched without subtitels so migh have missed some parts but liked the crazy of it.

This is an excellent, Dutch black comedy and well worth watching. However it is somewhat spoilt by an error concerning electricity, and a more obvious, major faux pas regarding a shotgun and its ammunition.

Time to purge the online trolls. Have you ever seen trolls on Twitter harassing other people? Do you feel fed up with all these comments? Well, our columnist felt that and now she wanted to get physical with these trolls. The scene where she started to do her thing got me by surprise. I read the synopsis but for some reason I did not expect that she would do that. After this, I got excited to see how crazy this movie would go, but I was wrong. For only an hour and 24 minutes, this movie was pretty boring and slow. I believe that the violence and gore would have make the message about online harassment more impactful. They got what they deserve right? There was not enough violence in here to make me enjoy the movie. Then, the theme itself was conflicting. On one side it's about freedom of speech through the daughter character, but on the other side it's about limiting this freedom of speech through the main character. I became confused on what this movie actually want to achieve. Overall, it was just another shallow work from a leftist director. 4.5/10

Great movie. Amazing writing, stunning cast.

Yeah, so...I found this on my library's streaming platform and remembered I had seen it advertised at a local film festival and figured why not watch it. The story, about a columnist turned serial killer sounds interesting, but the script was so basic & simple that it could have been written by a fifth grader. It honestly must have been a 15 page script, and this film should really have been just a short film, but instead they prolonged it to be an excruciating hour and 26 minutes. Watch it but don't say you weren't warned about the boredom and lack of anything interesting.