To preface: I know that without conflict movies cannot exist. But when the conflict of the movie hinges on the fact that no person with a working brain raising an issue with what’s happening, when the conflict could never exist because no human being would be so willingly blind, well, then it’s the movie that shouldn’t exist.
"The Parent Trap"
Honestly, the conversation that could have averted this movie should have happened on that boat at the beginning. (Do I need to describe this movie? We’ve all seen it.) Something along the lines of “Let’s maybe not get married after knowing each other for the length of a cruise? Let’s maybe not get married on this boat when we met each other yesterday?” But whatever. This movie freaks me out. What was the thought process in the divorce? “You get a twin, I get a twin, they’re obviously the same people because they look alike… good job, total stranger I married. This will work.” And then Lindsey Lohan meets Lindsey Lohan at camp and their plan is “Let’s switch! Mom gets a twin, dad gets a twin, we’re obviously the same person because we look like…”
They are their parent’s children, that’s for sure.
Anyway, the conversation that could solve this movie? “Joint custody.”
"Goodnight Mommy"
I saw this movie a little over a week ago; German horror story about twins and plastic surgery? Irresistible. Here’s how it goes down: Two boys living in rural Germany become convinced that their mother, who is recovering from some kind of plastic surgery and spends a good portion of the movie hidden by gauze, has actually been replaced with some cruel stranger. It’s almost painfully obvious that the real enemy is Elias, one of the little boys- his respective twin, Lukas, died before the events of the movie, and is manipulating the living twin to torture and murder their mother. The clues are numerous, obvious, and infuriating. When your grief-stricken son insists that Lukas is the reason he has tied you up and burned your flesh with a magnifying glass, maybe the best response isn’t to threaten to beat him? Maybe the phrase: “I’m sorry we lost Lukas, I’m suffering too, we’ll get through this?” would be helpful?
Yes, I see the metaphor. But honestly, I can’t believe it. Thirteen words. Around twenty in German. That’s all it takes to stop your child from supergluing you to the floor of your modern country home and burning you alive.
"Sinister"
Anybody remember this movie? It came out back in 2012, maybe a month before the end of the world. Kind of a Stephen King standard plot- a true-crime writer with writer’s block relocates his family to where the spooks are for some inspiration, spooks ensue. Timeless. But this movie has one central difference to that formula- this particular horror writer has a little white family of a wife and 2.5 children, and when he forces them to move into Death House, he doesn’t inform anyone that said house is haunted with a ghost that kills little white families.
I swear, this one just kills me. Horror movie dads are the worst when it comes to endangering their families, but this is a whole new level. What was Suburban Mom Model D75 doing while dad was looking at houses? Was she totally okay with moving her young children into a house and neighborhood she knows nothing about? And dad, honestly, what was the justification for this? “This house is haunted, but I, an accomplished true-crime writer, have the utmost faith that bad things never happen.”
And, in answer to that claim, Mom-Bot replies, “Stop your exceedingly selfish behavior, hack writer, and get inspiration from good parenting.”
Thirteen words said, countless lives saved.
