SPOOPYWEEN DAY 21 COBWEB!!!!

Day 21

Cobweb

Another film I knew nothing about, but came highly recommended. Another kid in terror film which as we all by now with my ranting. The world needs more of.

But also we get Homelander the father, which is fun enough as is. Only this time he’s not blonde and full of murder, jerking off from skyscrapers. Instead he’s a seemingly normal family man, with a quiet wife, living a quiet life, in a rackety crack house with a possibly deeply trouble son.

I have no idea, I’m just going off the cover art. ANYWAY, let’s dig into it. We are entering the home stretch now and I am looking forward to this. We got some surprises in store down the road and damn I wanna rush to them.

So pitter patter lets get at her, here comes Cobwebs.

The Film

Peter.

Peter is a normal kid, a quiet kid, and he has a healthy fear of spiders. Which I can agree with and believe should be kept strong. Heavens little messengers can go right back there. By any means necessary.

The only problem Peter has, is he goes to school with a bunch of assholes. I do mean assholes.

Seriously dude just wants to get an education, graduate, get a steady job and hopefully live without credit card or college debt.

But these bitches at his school, they can’t help but want to fuck with him. Mercilessly, and we have no idea why. Little dude sits at his desk, trying to learn, and these pissers are just screaming, yelling and tossing shit around like this is gen pop in prison. When he rides the bus? Literal bitches stick their legs out to trip him up, while others shank him in the kidneys. It’s pretty fucked up.

Well okay they might not actually shank him, but its pretty damn close man. They just torture the kid by threatening that they’ll beat his ass come recess. Even DURING class! Either he’s the poor kid in the neighborhood, or he is going to one of the most hardened, straight to prison for graduation schools. I haven’t seen bullying on this level since the fuckin 80’s and this lil bastard is either going to have to shank a gang leader in the showers for respect, or he’s going to end up tied to a tetherball pole and beaten with bars of soap.

His family is no better.

His parents are, seemingly abnormal. I like it.

It’s hard to peg exactly, but the feeling you get from his family is very on par with another oddity I grew up with as a kid, a film called PARENTS, about a boy who believes his parents are cannibals. Whether or not they are, is sort of up to you. It’s a weird creepy film I love, and this film has similar vibes. Especially with his parents. They seem fairly dismissive of Peter, but also concerned with keeping him home. Keeping him safe and away from others.

Honestly I almost doubt his parents ARE his parents.

The way they act, talk around him with thinly veiled threats and cursing his imagination. It’s just…troubling in the most best way possible. For a horror film.

To top all of this off?

He hears a voice coming from behind the wall in his bedroom. Which knows his name. Calls out to him nightly, on the reg. And pleads with him not to tell his parents. Which is always a good sign.

I mean when is it not good to have a voice talk to you, through the walls, and tell you not to tell others they exist, and offer you life advice.

Which it actively does. Seemingly for wrong reasons, but I think for the best.

Of course being a normal kid this freaks him out.

Again, slightly understandable. Given the best life advice you receive and signs you are cared for come from a voice in the walls, or your head.

Well his parents don’t care for this, but they also write it off. He does actually tell them. Nightly. About hearing a voice calling out to him, like the dark side. Or his murder angel. We’ll go with murder angel.

He tells them about this, and his dad, while he rushes to his room to check on him. Simply tells him to shut the fuck up, go back to bed, and reminds him how he killed an entire plane full of people without one fuck given.

Seriously I want this to be Homelander on vacation trying to be a parent before taking care of his actual son in the show.

The only actual living person on this poor kids side, is a substitute teacher, named Divine.

No they are not a beautiful man with a huge forehead in drag. Which is sadly unfortunate, and a huge missed opportunity by the filmmakers. But she’s a pretty okay school teacher. She cares about the kids, and immediately gravitates toward Peter. Because the kid is quiet, he’s being bullied, and also he gives off super strong I was kidnapped, my parents aren’t my parents please sweet Jesus God in heaven help me vibes.

Also because he hasn’t learned from his ‘parents’ yet the lesson of Snitches get stitches.

See it’s a week before Halloween. Which means time for making fun spooky art, pumpkin faces, and candy. So Peter decides to make a not so subtle drawing of himself in bed, surrounded by darkness, in his bedroom. With big bold letters spelling HELP ME written above him.

It’s subtle, but the teacher is picking up what he’s laying down.

Do his parents like this? FUCK NO! That aint goin up on the fridge!

The teacher pays his family a visit, and shows Peter’s mom the drawing. She freaks out about it, also about having the teacher show up at random in front of their decrepit home. Which again, understandable. Teachers haven’t done that since the 80’s.

When Peter’s mom confronts him about the drawing, she does so in the most motherly of fashions by asking him “What the fuck did you draw this for?! WHO DID YOU SHOW IT TOO?! DO WE HAVE TO PUT YOU IN THE BEATING CAGE?!” She then spends the rest of her day flicking lit cigarettes at his face while he cries and sits there taking it.

Well okay actually she just comes off again as a bit of a kidnapper versus a mom, asking him what he was trying to tell the teacher with that. Why would he write help me, and when he tries to tell her it was just a scary drawing? She tells him in the most motherly way possible “Your imagination, it’s going to get you in trouble one day”

Take that, as you will.

This is why I dig this movie so far.

I may be joking but the mom, and his father. They really are played in a very odd way that really does make you question are they really his parents? Are they hiding something? How they come off, and how they interact with Peter. It all is done in such a beautiful way that you really get a huge sense of creepiness from the parents. But much like that film I mentioned earlier PARENTS, you don’t actually know if its really that they aren’t right in the head? Or if this is simply played out for us how Peter sees them.

This film is really doing something that, and I’ll bring that film up again. This really feels like more the flavor and view Skinamarink was going for. Or should have gone for had it not been for taking the artistic road.

The way the film is being shot. How things start slowly growing, like literally getting bigger or out of place. It’s like showing us this is more and more how Peter sees the world. The actions of his parents, the threats from the kids. The kids come off menacing, as do the parents when they’re a bit upset. How it plays off is almost fantasy like.

Like you can’t imagine someone reacting the way his parents do with events in this film, unless they were flat out evil as hell. Or it was how Peter saw them in his own mind. That coupled with the unusual and ever changing size of the home, his bedroom, especially at night. It’s really cool and gives a nice eerie feeling. Sort of showing you the perspective of his world around him and how it looks to him.

But as nice as all this is. It’s a horror movie. It wants to remind us of this. It also is time, for the film to fuck with us. I love it.

I recognize I am laughing any time this kid or any kid gets a beating but you hit a certain age where this just becomes something you are happy to see when a little shit gets smacked down, or you know, like mystery science theater taught us. Repeat to yourself its just a show, I should really just relax.

Which is what Peter does. Be like Peter.

For on this day, it is pumpkin painting day.

Wow I’m fucking old.

In my day we carved pumpkins. We carved them at home, and brought them to school.

Next to my multiple awards in brewing I won in my 30’s, I was champion of Pumpkin carving for 6 years standing in elementary school. Each year I won for scariest pumpkin, I made a pinhead pumpkin with real nails in it and fake blood, I made a pumpkin puking its cuts out its mouth with fake blood and stab wounds. I…I may have had a very vivid imagination that by todays standards would’ve called for a lot more parent teacher conferences.

So Peter makes himself a friend. He paints a really cool pumpkin, with a cool attitude and face, and he is pleased. Hell even his teacher is pleased. He calls his Pumpkin Pedro, Because he looks like a Pedro, and he for the first time in weeks unclenches his ass cheeks and decides to walk the yard at recess.

Naturally he gets shoved to the ground for having a good day and gets to watch one of MANY bullies he has, curb stomp Pedro.

Peter cries as he watches his pumpkin friend get stomped into pumpkin puree by a kid full of glee looking like it’s Christmas day for him, while it’s a friends funeral for Peter. He goes home, full of tears and pain. Just another Tuesday for this kid. Until that night. The voice he hears ask why he’s crying, and comforts him. As well as offers truly inspiring life advice.

“Show him your not afraid of him. Let him know you aren’t afraid. Make HIM afraid. Push him!”

Sure it’s not up there with, when life gives you lemons. Or every gray cloud has a silver lining. But its something!

It’s also something Peter does with no hesitation. This voice has helped Peter find his balls, and he isn’t even taking this to the yard. This truly is life in the cell. Peter follows his bully and bullies friend to a stairwell and once there, Peter shoves that little shit down the stairs. We hear him tumble, cry and then scream bloody murder. Peter may have accidentally broken one, if not both of the bullies legs.

Peter did it. He took down his bully. Though it happened out of sight of the others, word of this will spread through out the prison, and the other inmates will respect Peter now. They will offer him smokes, and pass by quietly from now on. His life is set, and no one will fuck with him again. For Pedro yo!

For Pedro.

That is until his family is called down to the school. Apparently Peter is being expelled for an ‘accident’.

And this, is where the film turns it up on us.

Yeah.

The school push down the stairs and that voice wasn’t the turning point in the film. Oh hell no. That was just a good time and prison cred. What happens next is just pure fuckery.

His father, or kidnapper, Psychotic super hero.

Is grounding him.

Yes. Peter is being grounded. Which seems. I mean that fits the crime, yeah. Makes sense. Go to your room and think about what you did.

But that’s what happens in your home. To regular people.

But see

In the joint?

Your cement home?

Life is different. You get in trouble? You get sent to the hole. Solitary confinement. An empty room with no light, a pot to piss in, and a place to lay down. For several days. Surrounded by your own stink, and shit, no showers. Locked up 24 hours.

That’s what they do to Peter. Their son.

Seriously.

When his dad says he’s grounded, they aren’t sending him to his room, oh hell no. Hell no. They are moving a fucking shelf from the kitchen wall and revealing a tiny locked door. Leading to a concrete room, with a pallet board, a pillow and sleeping bag, and this mother fucker is getting chained to a metal grating in the floor. Where he can apparently see a dead body staring up at him through the ground.

NOW THAT IS SOME FUCKED UP SHIT!

But…

Is it real? Or is it in his head.

This shit is real jack!

For real these people are fucked up. But so is life in the joint.

So he’s kicked out of school for standing up for himself. What do now? Well his mom is going to home school him naturally. Which is father suggested, and naturally fully supports. Peter learns of this decision on his behalf not directly from his parents. But rather from another unscheduled visit by his teacher.

Seriously this woman deserves a pay raise, or likely she’d be put on a watch list for showing up at a students home, especially when that student is no longer attending her school. Sad world we live in. Sad world.

But yes. Miss Divine has come to check on poor Peter, giving him his last math test as an excuse to both show up at the house and check on him, and to hand him the test with, what looks to be her number.

Okay now that…that actually would absolutely land a teacher on a watch list, and for the right reasons.

But yes, Divine is visiting, offering her sympathies, and asking to see Peter. Asking what school he’ll go to.

As if the parents couldn’t get weirder and painted to be even more villainous. They. Well they are…painted more villainous. Dad offers Divine some coffee, while casually bleeding out of his arm. Like a lot. She mentions this to him, that he’s bleeding, and he calmly tells her he’s doing some remodeling and he cut himself on a loose nail.

Now…I’m no home repair man. I can do a fair amount of work around the house, and lord knows I’ve have my accidents.

Hell, even Larry Cotton in Hellraiser, when he was moving the bed they had delivered to the house. He scraped his hand on a loose nail, and he ended up with a small 2 inch gash on his hand.

This mother fucker has a goddamn 9 inch gash down his arm. Oozing blood all over the damn place.

Which he doesn’t seem to mind, surprisingly. Well I say that but he could actually be completely out of his mind. So. There’s that.

The impromptu teacher parent meeting goes horribly awkward and nothing gets achieved by it. Except that Divine gets scared shitless, and believes the family has Peter locked up somewhere in the house. Which they do. But she wants to live. Very very badly. So she gets the fuck out of crazy town, shouts out ‘DUECES’ to Peter in the wall, and takes off for her car.

The same day, thankfully. His family decides to bake some choice pumpkin bread muffins and free Peter from confinement. He’s let loose back in the house, and his parents inform him of their plans to home school him, and if he misbehaves any further he’ll find himself living with his aunty and uncle in Belair.

Or they’ll just kill him.

They’ll kill him.

So he’s going to go along with the program, trading in one prison for another.

And what of this voice he hears? It’s still with him. Very much so. And about to make things even more fun and interesting for him. Peter would very much like some normalcy in his life. So he ask this voice who the hell they are, and what gang they run with. The voice isn’t gang affiliated as they don’t run on the streets anymore. But she is, his sister!

Yes. She is his older sister, and she’s been living in the walls of this crazy house. Which is feeling less like PARENTS and more like The People Under The Stairs by now.

She decides its time Peter knew the truth, the whole truth, and the truth as far as his ass is willing to carry it. But first he has to do something for her. She tells him to dig up a body in the backyard, as proof she really knows whats up around here, and that he needs to trust her.

He does so. He finds a skull.

His sister lays out for him how she used to be kept in the house, same as him. Until Halloween night a few years ago, when she asked a trick r treater for help. The girl was going to help her escape. But her parents killed that girl. Which started a town legend of Halloween being cursed in the area because a girl went missing that night. After that the parents locked her up inside the walls of the house. Where she’s grown up. Contorting her body, like a spider. Living between the walls. And now that Peter is old enough, he can help her escape and start a prison riot. Free her ass, and the two of them can free each other.

Peter just wants to live a normal life. He didn’t ask for this.

Little mother fucker didn’t ask for crazy ass murderous parents. He didn’t ask to be bullied by an entire fucking classroom of dicks. Lil dude did NOT ask to have a wall spider sister living in the goddamn walls, creeping his ass out at night, telling him to dig up damn bodies, and make him piss himself.

Dude just wants to trick r treat, play with action figures, and watch some fuckin Blue’s Clues. Maybe surf the web for Mr Beast videos and play some Minecraft.

But no. Now he has to save his wall sister, from his crazy ass murder parents, and not get killed in the process.

So he tries to be…reasonable.

He has a possible wall sister. Cool.

His parents may have killed a girl. Cool.

His sister wants to be set free and obtain sweet vengeance. Cool.

He decides instead. The most rational thing they can do. Is call the warden of the state. Miss Divine. Call her, ask for help, and get the authorities involved.

Earlier in this film. He was meant to learn a valuable lesson. About snitches and what happens to them. He did not learn this apparently. As his mother finds him calling his teacher  and asking for help. So mom clears things with the teacher in the most unconvincing way possible, and loses her shit, crying and informing her son “Whatever happens now, you did to yourself. Just wait till your father gets home.”

When papa does get home. He is told to help him in the garden. Apparently they have black rot and pumpkins are rotting. So to resolve this, he needs to dig for daddy a 6 foot by 9 foot hole. Which the kid can’t do. So he cuts it down to a slim 5 foot by 2 feet deep hole.

Needless to say. Peter is realizing he may have just accidentally fucked around, and will soon find out. So its time for Plan b. The sister plan.

On top of this though, is another element.

We have guest who plan to come over to the house tonight. Not Divine and her group of the filthiest people alive. No. Instead, it’s a party van with the older brothers and cousins of the bully whom he pushed down the stairs. Just as donuts are donuts, what comes around in the yard, comes back twice as hard. So tonight and the final 20 minutes of this movie. Are looking pretty interesting.

Again, this boy just wanted to chill and get candy. Now he’s got people coming for his ass.

So its his final meal. Mom is shaking and losing her shit. Dad is oddly calm, because he’s the one that has to kill the boy. Mom can’t handle it. They’re all eating the grossest bowl of pumpkin soup I think I have ever witnessed in my life. Whatever mom did to that pumpkin while cooking it was not only a sin. But an abortion of gods culinary creation. So basically Denny’s food.

Well mom and dad are happy eating it at least. However Peter is not that hungry. Which who could blame him, your ass is gonna die tonight, you either lose your appetite and think about what you WERE going to be when you grew up. Or you stuff yourself to the point of bursting, knowing when you die. You are gonna absolutely shit your body out and they’re going to have to deal with that. Seriously there are prisoners who’ve done that as a final fuck you to the system.

It's always possible with this kid.

But Peter isn’t going out like that. He’s not planning on going out at all. Except to freedom. As Homelander is eating his wife’s godforsaken soul destroying soup. He notes that it taste a little different. Tasty but different. Well that’s because their precious child put rat poison in it. Pellets that smell like Cinnamon. Because he helped his dad put rat poison around the house earlier in the film and commented to his dad that it smelt like cinnamon, sweet. Prompting his evil dad to smile and say that well, not everything that’s sweet, is good for you.

Realizing what he’s eating, and that this is not the spice. His eyes will not turn blue. Homelander gets reasonably upset and tells his wife to call 911, because they’ve been poisoned. He also could have called the poison control center. They also would get an ambulance to you and alert the closest hospital to expect you. It’s important to know these things, they really can help you.

Well everyone is in a panic, and the semi subtle movie takes a turn the moment daddy homelander begins vomiting up buckets of blood onto the dining room table before passing out, and or dying.

Mom grabs a kitchen knife and decides its ride or die time. But she too also ends up puking fountains of blood. But Peter isn’t going to let that stop him. His mind is made up. He’s ready for this. Gang gang! He pushes his mother down a flight of stairs. She ends up stabbing herself with the kitchen knife and her last words to her son/not son. Is to plead with him. Not to let his sister out.

Which seems really odd for a final thing to say. But we all have our moments.

So armed with the keys to every door in the house. It’s time for Peter to let his sister free.

Pulling down a huge grandfather clock, and unlocking the worlds second smallest door. Freeing his sister. Which. Not gonna lie. Had me curious, and the film absolutely takes its time creeping us out with her reveal. Which is deserved.

She absolutely is spider like. With thin spidery fingers. Long unwashed hair, and a lust for murder.

Perhaps freeing her actually wasn’t a good idea. But potato pamurder. She’s free and not crawling back into the walls any time soon. But before Peter can piss himself realizing he might have made a booboo of releasing her. The bully and his family are here for candy, and payback. But the house is all out of candy.

Which leads to the oddest bit of vengeance in this film.

The bullies all put on oversized weird animal face mask. To hide their identity. Which is funny honestly. Because golly gee who could these masked bandits be? And why is one of them using crutches to get around, and also the same size as a kid. Like the kid he pushed down the stairs. Seriously these people are not the smartest. Even more funny is when they think Peter is left alone, they decide not just to drag him out and beat him. But to destroy everything inside the house. Because why not? In for a penny, in for a pound I suppose.

Well this is, for lack of a better term. The moment the movie decides to go off the fucking rails. Like. Completely off the fucking rails.

Because sister spider is free. And bad boys are in the house.

Yes she gets to them all. Including Peters bully.

Thing is. I could see her going a bit feral. Like for instance say. The film Barbarian. I could see her slashing with her nails, stabbing with them, and even ripping throats with her teeth. Girl learned to survive in the walls of a house surrounded by rats and spiders. That aint easy.

But no. The film went Hollywood with it. Not only did she learn to live with the spiders and rats, not only does she have claws and teeth. She’s also deformed. Born deformed in fact. She also has super human strength. Because why not.

We learn this the moment one of the bullies gets pulled under a piano, screams and we suddenly see a BLAST of blood. It’s comical and over the top. Which seems out of place with this film so far.

The next kid gets torn in half, another beheaded, and Billy the Bully with the broken leg? Well he apparently got it the worst but we don’t see entirely.

All of them are killed, ripped apart and tossed around like rag dolls by this very spindly limbed sister. Who also took the time to pull a Jason Vorhees and move the bodies of the parents around the house to spook the intruders. Because why not.

It’s over the top bloody and just gets more insane.

Once she’s done dispatching the bullies? It’s time for her brother. Yes, even he isn’t safe. Only she won’t kill him. Instead she finds him, and gives him her backstory. That she was born a monster, and mom and dad screamed when she was born. And how she was raised in a pit, and a cage, and then finally shoved into the walls of the house to become a spider sister. While he was born cute and had a bed, their love, and treated normal. So she used him to free herself, and now its payback. So she tosses him into the wall room. Because that’s only fair. Apparently.

But the movie isn’t done yet, oh no.

We have Miss Divine still. She decides to check on Peter and his call for help to her. So she arrives. Finds bodies, body parts, and blood everywhere. Leading her to believe things are, not fine.

What follows is the silliest and saddest cgi fest and laugh fest of the film. A film that up until the end, I was rooting for and behind. Until they gave his sister bug eyes, an oversized mouth full of fangs, and a cartoon face that Dobby would jerk off too, if he were alive.

Divine finds bodies, screams. Runs. Goes to leave the house.

Peter cries for help. Divine goes back inside.

Divine gets chased by spider sister, finds Peter runs for the door.

Spider sister grabs Peter, flings him down a pit and locks front door.

Divine gets in house, finds peter, fights spider sister.

Spider sister fights Divine, Peter saves her. Divine saves Peter.

The two make it out of the house alive.

Divine is his new mama, and spider sister is living in a pit.

The end is less a confrontation, which is nice. But it’s also just. Well. It’s an ending.

As Divine beats Spider Sister until she cuts into her gut, then kicks her back down into her pit. They lock her up and Peter hurries with Divine to leave. As they ready to flee, Spider Sister calls out to Peter, pleading with him to help his sister. But he isn’t buying that. So he tells her to sit and spin. She tries the Palpatine route of ‘we aren’t so different, you and I’, bringing up his killing the parents, and her killing. How they’re both killers and cool. But nope. Peter isn’t a fool. He sees light at the end of the tunnel here. He found an out for a normal life. And when your options are narrowed down to either living with your teacher, or living in a spider pit with your Spider Sister. You know what choice is right.

Well seeing he has an out, Spider Sister leaves him with a final warning. That the prison put they put her in, won’t hold her forever, and then every day of his life, he’s going to live in fear. Wondering if every little sound he hears, every shadow. Every uneasy feeling he gets. Is from her. Wondering if she’ll be there, waiting for him, to kill him. So the movie ends with Peter imagining having a new home, new bed and his Spider Sister snooping up behind him.

So, that’s Peter’s life now. With his teacher. And no one asked any questions.

The End

Okay so. Well. Yes. That was. A film.

God that was sad. I mean. The movie had hope. It started so well.

It created a nice creepy atmosphere, it had a nice look to it, showing us people you didn’t know if you could trust or not. What was real and what was just Peter. The idea he could have been kidnapped and told he was their child, or they were simply killers who began killing their kids if they weren’t perfect. There was a lot building up there and it all was pretty promising.

But then the third act happened.

What’s worse is that it sort of makes sense. But in a truly unsatisfying way. Which, again. Is also how it unfortunately sort of works.

The film created questions. It gave you options and enough to question ‘are they or aren’t they’, only for the movie to then tell you “Nope it was what you originally thought, everything else didn’t matter.” Which is frustrating. But makes sense. In the end all that mattered was the voice behind the wall was real. It was a deformed child that grew up murderous, raised by a crazy murderous couple, who gave birth to the siblings and raised them.

The other possibilities could’ve been equally entertaining. They also could have added a bit to the story in the end. Because what we still end up with. In a way? STILL makes it suggest what we saw wasn’t entirely the whole story.

Like I mentioned before, during the movie its made rather clear the story is being told from Peters point of view. As the film goes on, his parents are seen by him as more and more unstable and like monsters, much like his bullies. As problems mount the world becomes larger around him, Making him feel even more swallowed up by everything.

When he ends up poisoning his parents. The reaction from his parents can be taken two ways. At first, the father realizing what could have happened, and then REALIZING what it was that his son did. It’s not exactly the actions of a murderer. He’s shocked by what happens and instead of trying to kill Peter or telling his wife to kill him he instead in a panic shouts for her to call 911.

When Peter tells him what he did, by saying “You hurt my sister”, the look on his face, and his wifes. Again it’s not that of what you’d expect from crazy killers. They seemed genuinely shocked and instead of trying to kill Peter, Dad wants the paramedics.

It’s only after his wife discovers the phone line is cut by Peter, and she sees her husband puke blood and DIE that she snaps and goes for a knife, and even when she is facing death. She still pleads with her son not to free his sister.

BOTH of them are terrified of his sister and him knowing about her. But we’re never really told why. Past well..she was born ugly and deformed. So apparently that was enough to cause THAT kind of fear in them?

The way they acted about it, suggest they wanted to protect him. That they knew she resented her brother. That she’d tried to kill him AND them if she ever got free. Why would to psychopaths be cool with killing their son. But be shocked at the idea he’d free his sister, knowing she’d kill him? It just, to me. Suggest there was something more there, possibly.

If you even go further back and watch the mom earlier on in the film? She’s barely holding it together, where the dad is the one holding things and making them run. He is a sign of strength and stability for her. You can look at it as. Well yes. Maybe what happened with their daughter, her being born how she was, and her parents being ashamed of her, horrified. They couldn’t bring themselves to kill her. So they put her in a prison, assuming nature would take its course. When they saw the trick r treater and she saw their daughter. The mom freaked out and killed the girl. I assume it was her. So the parents had to hide two secrets now. A murder and a hidden child.

This explains why the mom hates Halloween and didn’t want to celebrate it what so ever, and over reacted at Peter when he asked why he couldn’t go trick R Treating, and why mom gave dad looks when he told Peter about the girl that disappeared Halloween night. The mom lost both her daughter, and had to kill someone that night.

So from then on, and with their son. The mom has been uneasy and barely functioning. When Peter called for help and made his drawing asking for help? She acted out again. He was supposed to be perfect. He was supposed to be the ideal child and a way to forget about the monstrosity in the walls. The thing to make life normal again. But now things were going sideways. Again. It would explain her reaction screaming at him that whatever happens now, he brought it on himself. She was telling her son that he’d end up just like his sister…or the dead girl. So when Dad died from the rat poison pumpkin soup. Mom finally snapped. Just like she did when she killed the trick r treater. Only to revert back to her motherly self when she was moments from dying, trying to protect her son.

Looking at the film from that perspective? Which I truly believe WAS the story buried in all this shit. It helps. It makes sense, and its pretty sad.

The only thing keeping that story from sticking and giving us a satisfying conclusion. Is the goddamn murder spree with super roided out Spider Sister. The movie decided to turn into Barbarian at the end, and it just came off boring. Barbarian was a different movie. It wasn’t the best thing. But it was certainly a funny what the fuck movie. It was mostly just different. You also had a house that had a complicated tunnel system with cells and panic rooms under it. Here you had a home with a pumpkin field, body in the backyard, a huge ass 20ft cement pit in the basement, and enough space between the walls for a full ass grown woman to chill out.

But again, People Under the Stairs, had booby traps, a maze between the walls, and a basement full of tongueless pale faced cannibals, and a treasure room full of gold coins. Soooo. Yeah.

The problem is. Both Barbarian and People Under the Stairs presented themselves as over the top and comedic. They started creepy, they built up, and then gave us silly moments, scary moments, and what the fuck moments. So you were ready for it. Somewhat. Both were wild rides and something people talked about still after.  This film not so much. Had it been set up similarly? It’d be different. Had they stuck the landing the story I just went into with the parents would have landed better, and been more of an oh shit. As it stands however. It just want overboard and kept going.

I really wanted this to be a good time and it really should have been. Why they chose to throw all the spaghetti at the wall in the end? I don’t know. But when a movie manages to be spoopy and fun with very VERY little if any jump scares? Only to then fill the end with NOTHING BUT. It’s like writing fanfic online, and three people take turns. The first writer setup the mystery. The second writer settled on the option they liked for the mystery. But the third writer just burned it all down because they thought it’d be funny. So you end up with a 2/3rd good film.

Which again, is disappointing.

BUT

I STILL believe. This movie was giving a better view of a kids world, and how odd things can be, look, and seem to them on camera. Versus Skinamarink. 21 movies down and I still can’t believe that movie has the love it does. Anyway.

Should people check this out? That’s a coin toss. Know what you’re getting into. Or don’t. See how you feel about it after it’s done. After I watched this I talked to my sister and she surprisingly had watched it the night before as well. She told me the same thing. We ended up agreeing on all our points. The film dropped, picked up, fumbled and dropped the ball again, kicking it across the finish line and did a victory dance for itself, without thinking to look if the crowd was cheering along with them.

Good premise, fun ideas. Just didn’t land so well.

What’s worse it feels though. Is I don’t think the film could work any other way, than how it worked out.

Could the sister had been just a voice in the boys head? Sure. But it wouldn’t have fit with the rest of the movie. Could he have ended up kidnapped and his sister normal? Just feral looking and a prisoner? Absolutely. It might work, but what to do with the parents then. The movie was made to be how it was, and it just. Yeah. It’s unfortunate.

At any rate, We are nearing the finish line here, and I am both sad but thankful for it. I’m pushing these out as best and fast as I can. And thank all of you reading these for sticking around and understanding. If you DO decide to check the film out. Let me know if you agree or found it hit you different. But so far, it unfortunately seems to be universally agreed upon. So until tomorrow. If you hear scratching in your walls, and hear a voice calling out for you to free them? Maybe take a good hard look at your life, and stop drinking vodka with a can of beans before bed. Or let your sibling out of the damn walls. GOODNIGHT!