IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0951335/
Starring: Kevin Costner & the girl from Pan’s Labyrinth
Review in a nutshell: Paging Dr. Freud! There’s a complex here to see you.
Seriously. This movie is dripping with oedipal bullshit. We’ve got a single dad, recently divorced moving two kids across the country for a fresh start. Presumably because he’s never seen a movie in his life. After they get there his daughter makes some new friends and starts showing signs of physical and emotional changes. Dad does his best to keep his daughter away from those friends and stop the changes from happening, but eventually it all blows up. Literally. Then his poor son ends up getting eaten by his sister’s friends because dad was too busy protecting her to to protect him. See, this movie isn’t a puberty, it’s about ant people.. and I say that because the director beats us over the head with ant imagery. So much so that I half expected to find out this was a remake of Them.
Except when we see one of the monsters at the end, they’re not insects at all. They’re more like mole people. It doesn’t matter anyway because they aren’t the daughter’s friends OR mole people. Whether it was intentional or not, the monsters seem to be an embodiment of fathers’ fears when their daughters start dating: They change her and try to take her away from him. I say this because this imagery is ALSO waved in front of out faces so we can’t miss it. Also, the daughter is on an emotional roller coaster because she is angry at her parents about their divorce and hopped up on mole people puberty hormones. Sometimes she wants to be daddy’s little girl. Sometimes she wants to be a gothy mole people queen. In the end, daddums should have let her go her own way because it’s his son who gets the short end of the stick. He’s told to suck up and be a man while everyone freaks out over his sister’s drama. Then he gets eaten. Roll credits.
Where I found it: Netflix
How much I paid for it: 108 minutes
Points of interest: This does kind of count as a fairy tale. The movie keeps referring to it as a burial mound but it could have also been interpreted as a fairy fort. The “new” daughter could then be considered a changeling. The “old” daughter could be considered a virgin sacrifice.
The Money Shot: Kevin Costner decides to dig up the burial mound his daughter is obsessed with and has contacted a contractor to help him. The bulldozer picks up parts of the missing babysitter with it’s first scoop.
Related Links:
Pan’s Labyrinth
Them!
Fairy Forts
Oedipus Complex
I love bad movies. LOVE them. I have several definitions of bad, but it all comes down to “bad on purpose” and “bad by accident”.
I will watch it if:
it can be described as science fiction, fantasy, or horror (Sometimes I will watch action comedy but these are less likely.)
it is described as a mystery or thriller and a serial killer is mentioned in the description.
it has less than three stars on Netflix
the cast includes Ron Perlman, Rutger Hauer, Henry Rollins, Bill Mosely, Bruce Campbell, Clancy Brown or Malcolm McDowell
Lovecraft, Cthulu or Dragons are mentioned in the title, tag line or box art.
- Midsommar - January 28, 2020
- Slender Man - March 4, 2019
- The Unnamable - March 2, 2019