Central Park is so uneventful to the point where we’re unsure if we’re watching a horror/slasher until the very end. However, the 2017 film has one piece of armor that ups its game — something like this can, and actually has happened, in reality. New York City is known for its history of crime and attacks, and the real-life Central Park is no exception. The movie spends most of its time getting us acquainted with its main characters, and it tries to establish its antagonist as a creepy photo-taking stalker. But we’re left wondering why? The beginning backstory doesn’t give us all the direct knowledge to grip our attention in time. 

The story introduces us to high school friends Sessa (Ruby Modine), Leyla (Grace Van Patten), Michael “Mikey” (Deema Aitken), Felix (Guillermo Arribas) and Justin Davis (Harold Smith), whose father is responsible for one of the biggest Ponzi schemes since Bernie Madoff’s apparently. One of his clients, who lost the most money, also lost his pregnant wife by supposedly falling to her death. Now, he’s on a killing spree to get revenge. The high-schoolers decide to hang out in Central Park one night, only to realize that they’re being hunted down one by one for reasons they don’t understand. 

Director and writer Justin Reinsilber had several chances to really scare us. His audience needed to get on the characters’ sides more, but it’s hard when we’re just given an exterior, cookie cutter picture of who they are. How can we truly be thrilled by a horror movie if 70% of the film spends its time walking us through the main characters’ everyday lives? 

Strong Teen Cast

Despite the film’s lackluster vibe, the young cast members overall give stellar performances, primarily Smith, whose character, Justin, is dealing with the most stress and pain. And through other character backstories, such as Mikey’s — whose background feels like a waste of time because the movie abruptly ignores him later on — we see a bunch of times for them to shine.

Not only that, but this movie also cast its characters better than others have. 30 year olds portraying 17 year olds with a ton of makeup and high heels just isn’t convincing. But Central Park ensured that its characters actually appeared like a couple of NYC-based private school students. 

Smith’s character, Justin, has several moments of character development, one of which we really pay attention to. As the friends hang out together in the park, Justin has a tearful moment with his girlfriend about his personal life, and he invites us into his complicated life. The only element that damages the actor’s moving performance is how out of place and forced the scene feels. The director likely wanted to use this scene to give his audience the bait to hook us into his climactic ending. However, we’re just left wondering why Justin is crying and unwinding with his friends now out of all the times. 

For Michael or “Mikey’s” part, we struggle to understand what his place is in this story. He clearly has a complex home life, as his little sister relies on him and views him as her second caretaker, and he apparently is a good student who showed up to class high. We see him trying to battle some of his inner demons just like Justin is, but we don’t understand why we should or how we can empathize with him. His backstory, sadly, felt like filler material rather than a solid background.