First:\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 My father used to have a thing about never patronizing a business that deliberately misspelled its title.\u00a0 I get that.\u00a0 I feel the same way about names that all run together using lowercase letters, as if that makes everything more profound.<\/p>\n
Anyway.\u00a0 To sum up:\u00a0 About 70 years ago, the whole population of a tiny New Hampshire town left home and walked a trail that led to the death and\/or disappearance of just about everyone.\u00a0 Now, a couple of photographers\/writers, along with support staff and a local, attempt to recreate that walk to find out more about the townsfolk’s final days.\u00a0 A horror movie ensues.<\/p>\n
The first two-thirds of this movie scared the bejesus out of me.\u00a0 I’m a sucker for excellent sound effects, and even on our lousy home system, the music and sound-related creepiness had me ducking under blankets.\u00a0 And I can’t really talk about the rest of my opinions without a great big spoiler tag, so:<\/p>\n
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER NOW YOU KNOW<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So, as everyone went nuts, here’s what happened:\u00a0 really creepy things regarding numbers and map settings and coordinates, which were so cool<\/em>.\u00a0 I am a complete <\/em>sucker for that sort of time and location displacement.\u00a0 It’s more effective, scare-wise, for me than a thousand icky deaths.\u00a0 Really, for all that I enjoy horror movies, I don’t enjoy a thousand icky deaths at all.\u00a0 Give me a Session 9<\/em> over splatterpunk any day.<\/p>\n I wryly mentioned to Bryant later that of course the male characters, when going insane, became all homicidal, while the female characters became victims.\u00a0 That’s not true, upon reflection.\u00a0 Suicide claimed three of the seven, murder three.\u00a0 A ludicrous stupid inconclusive ending claimed the last.\u00a0 At the same time, the trope from most of horror media remained consistent:\u00a0 when it was time for sharp implements to penetrate people, men were doing it to women (except for the final girl bent on revenge).<\/p>\n (And on a personal note, yes, I found the suicides troubling, but not particularly wrenching among all the other awful things going on.\u00a0 I guess I can say that the acts fit the context, horrible as they were.)<\/p>\n Did I find it worth the $4.99 iTunes rental?\u00a0 I’d say an unqualified “yes,” but the ending turns it into a totally qualified “sorta yes?”\u00a0 Interesting effects, a few fascinating characters, a few compelling performances.\u00a0 Balance that against a few really wooden performances and an ending that made me want to throw things.<\/p>\n So:\u00a0 meh?\u00a0 Wait for Netflix to stream it, maybe.\u00a0 Be aware, though:\u00a0 the ending is just inane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First:\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 My father used to have a thing about never patronizing a business that deliberately misspelled its title.\u00a0 I get that.\u00a0 I feel the same way about names that all run together using lowercase letters, as if that makes everything more profound. Anyway.\u00a0 To sum up:\u00a0 About 70 years ago, the whole population of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}