Wrapped up inside a thoroughly entertaining tale is a potent examination of the modern-day male-female dynamic that never feels preachy, as well as a look at power, exploitation and abuse.
When they get there, there are clothes laid out for them and the other women – Sarah (Adria Arjona), Carmilla (Liz Caribel) and Heather (Trew Mullen).
Around the table are King’s buddies, including Vic (Christian Slater), who has an incessant habit of snapping Polaroids of anyone and everyone, and entitled geeks Tom (Haley Joel Osment) and Lucas (Levon Hawke).
There’s also Cody (Red Rocket’s Simon Rex), who is in charge of supplying the delicious food before everyone starts dropping liquid MDMA on their tongues and getting super high. With Slater footing the bill, it all sounds idyllic. Until it is not.
Scripted by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum, Blink Twice has an increasingly hallucinogenic quality as things unfold, but it never loses the plot. Well structured – the use of Jess’ yellow lighter as a totem is really clever – it is a film that keeps you guessing until everything drops neatly into place.
Then it becomes a matter of survival, something Arjona’s ex-reality-TV star repeatedly says she is capable of doing.
Kravitz, his real-life fiancée, directs with intent, while Ackie revels in her role as the “invisible” woman who “ain’t nobody”, as the Chaka Khan song goes that memorably plays across one scene.
The final act is bloody, and might be too much for some, but there is a glee reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s oeuvre to the gore. It leaves the viewer both satisfied and with much to ponder.