A Doll Party Is the Least of Your Worries

Dark Touch has the kind of typical cover art that runs rampant on the horror section of Netflix Instant. Based on that, I wasn't expecting much.

It's nice to be surprised. 

Quick Plot: Niamh (pronounced 'Neav', as if THAT makes sense Ireland) is a quiet and seemingly awkward young girl living in a small Irish countryside village. One night, she runs from her house screaming with a sliced tongue, taking refuge of sorts in her neighbors, the Galins. Whatever caused such a stir remains unexplained as her upper class, distant parents dismiss it.

A few nights later, Niamh awakens to find her baby brother crying on the hallway floor. Wealthy, distant parents are quick to blame Niamh before being taken out by all manners of evil housewares. Chandeliers rain, desks attack, and like a darker memory of Tourist Trap's prologue, Niamh's folks are brutally slaughtered by mere household furniture.

Neighbor Nat is quick to take in Niamh, but as anyone who's seen Orphan, Stevie, Case 39, or pretty much any genre film involving adoption ever knows, foster care is tricky business. Shy and withdrawn, Niamh has a hard time fitting in at school. At home, she never seems able to settle, flinching any time Nat or her husband come near or make an attempt to touch her. 

Clearly, Niamh has some demons. What makes Dark Touch such a fascinating little horror film is how it demonstrates their presence without outright explaining, well, pretty much anything. Nobody ever really comes out and asks Niamh what's wrong and if they had, Niamh probably couldn't put it into words.

Directed by Marina de Van (best known for In My Skin and Don’t Look Back), Dark Touch is a far deeper film than what its premise and cover art suggest. Sure, the Carrie telekinesis feels a little typical at first, but as the film circles Niamh’s discomfort with the world around her, it’s striking to realize that Dark Touch never has to tell you what’s actually going on. It doesn’t have to: we know what we need from the horror that constantly pains Niamh’s face. Everything else is just collateral damage.

High Points

The strength of Dark Touch really does lie in what it buries so slightly under the surface. It’s quite a feat for a brief and still genuinely scary little horror film

Low Points

Throughout the film, Niamh continues to run into a pair of abused siblings who at first seem like ghosts. There's a clear connection running through the trio, but much like the recent Jug Face, it's probably the one major area of Dark Touch that felt a little too cheap horror movie

Lessons Learned

Inviting every guest to bring a doll to an eight-year-old’s birthday party is really just asking for trouble

Children don’t always realize how violent they can be

Well-intentioned foster parents don't always realize how violent children can be

Rent/Bury/Buy

Dark Touch is an oddly effective film that doesn't quite reveal itself until the credits have rolled. I found myself slightly frustrated while watching  in trying to figure out what I was missing, but once it was over and I gave it a little more thought, everything became perfectly clear. This is a story about child abuse, how it gives birth to something so confused and angry, so potentially powerful and so easy to misunderstand. It's not an easy watch, but as far as modern horror gores, it's incredibly disturbing.

Monday March Musical Madness: Carrie

When Carrie: The Musical debuted on Broadway in 1988, it lasted just six performances before its financial backers pulled the plug. It was an $8 million investment, the Ishtar of the theatre world that despite sold-out early runs, would not even try to survive amid the venomous reviews that would make everything written about Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark feel like a soft fluffy blanket.

There was no cast recording ever released for the original production, although star Betty Buckley (who also appeared earlier in the Brian DePalma film) would go on to use one of its songs in her concert performances and discuss the show’s missed potential on an extra for the special edition film DVD release. Some grainy 1980s bootlegs have occasionally surfaced on YouTube, but save for a popular coffee table book about Broadway flops, the musical seemed destined to remain an urban legend to 21st century audiences.

When I learned that Carrie was being revived by the MCC Theater for the Off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre, there was no chance in Castle Rock that I would miss it. With my cell phone turned off and fella bravely at my side, I ventured.

If you know the story of Carrie, then you know the story of the musical: Religious Teen’s telekinetic abilities blossom with her first period, while the Mean Girls tampon-bomb her and Nice Mean Girl feels bad about it. Nice Mean Girl enlists her Nice Boyfriend to take Religious Teen to the prom. Meanest Mean Girl dumps pig’s blood on Religious Teen just as she’s crowned prom queen. Mayhem ensues. Crazy Mom goes crazier. One survives.

A lot of theater audiences mock the very idea of turning a ‘70s horror novel into a musical. I think the potential is actually quite strong, since Carrie is a fairly operatic premise, with plenty of high drama character arcs that easily lend themselves to song. The risk, of course, is that if the material is taken seriously and DOESN’T work, it’s such a grand miscalculation that will immediately damn it as a more obvious flop than say, a musical retelling of Jane Eyre.

Following the colossal failure of Carrie’s first run, why revive it? I think the answer lies in the extreme curiosity of people like myself or Patrick over at the Scream Queenz podcast (check out his ultimate Carrie episode here). The same people who forked over a few bucks to see Hannibal Lector pirouette in Silence: The Musical might be eager to watch Mrs. White raise a knife over her blood-stained daughter’s middle.

We’re even more eager to laugh at it.

But see, just like its namesake, Carrie doesn’t want to be laughed at. It wants to move you, moisten your eyes, teach you about bullying and send chills down your spine without the help of air conditioning. This isn’t Silence or Evil Dead damnit! This is SERIOUS!

Which would be fine if the show was close to being great.

It’s not. It’s just...not.

By no means is Carrie the worst musical ever made. Come on folks, I’ve seen the woefully misguided Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, something even Patti LuFUCKINGPone couldn’t save. I was one of the very, very very very very few free ticket holders to get a peek at Jackie Mason’s painful Laughing Room Only, a show that ended its first act with a ten minute song about how Starbucks is confusing to old Jewish men. Carrie, you got nothing on that.

On the other hand, I’ve also been lucky enough to cry my eyes out at Ragtime and get the urge to kill a president seeing the incredible Assassins. Carrie won’t inspire me to commit a felony, nor did it crank up my tear ducts or ignite my glee on a ‘is this REALLY happening’ Love Never Dies level. Nope, it will do nothing because it’s a perfectly mediocre and forgettable show.

C’mon! It’s CARRIE! The MUSICAL! Mediocre is a dirtier word than dirty pillows.

The music is...okay. Most of the high points happen during Carrie and her mother’s tense duets, and while the melodies are haunting, the intensity isn’t as powerful as it should be, especially when Dean Pitchford’s lyrics might as well ask the audience to just fill in the rhyme with whatever is the easiest matching word. Molly Ranson has an incredible voice and likable presence as the awkward Carrie, but she never quite registers as the stomped upon wallflower abused from every side. Broadway veteran Marin Mazzie (a Ragtime star herself) gets some of the best musical moments as Mrs. White, but there’s no real sense of the horror she’s capable of, making her big final moment more laughable than scary. I can appreciate the idea of toning down Piper Laurie’s iconic crazy to find some more humanity in the character, but ultimately, the stakes just never get high enough.

The rest of the cast does little with little. While the ensemble hits their mark and pop admirably, Christy Altomare’s Sue Snell has little spark. It doesn’t help that the musical incorporates an awkward interrogation style for Sue to speak directly to the audience, telling us everything that did and will happen and what it all might mean. This element is obviously taken from the novel (and to worse extent, the 2002 television remake) and while one could see how it’s supposed to lend commentary on the story, it’s used so poorly that it ends up feeling like a theater game the writers forgot to cut after the workshop.

So what DOES work? David Zinn’s set design primarily. The simple look focuses on a pair of gymnasium doors, an ominous and surprisingly powerful foundation that does more to foreshadow the impending horror than all of Sue’s “We didn’t know what would happen!” pleas clumsily planted in the first act. Similarly, Kevin Adams’ lighting design does the job of covering the prom queen in pig’s blood in an effective way. Unfortunately, the story itself rushes through the climax as if trying to get its audience on the next train. Neither Carrie’s joyful crowning nor her rage fueled massacre is given any proper stage time, meaning we never feel the highs of her glory or real motivation for her crime. The attack ends in less than a minute, wiping all the characters out without prejudice. While I wouldn’t expect a small-scale musical to expand Carrie’s hunt outside of school grounds, the decision to give head mean girl Chris the same end as her lackeys and randomly southern gym teacher feels lazily anticlimactic.

I don’t regret seeing Carrie because, well, I’m me and would have felt my life unlived if I’d missed it. That being said, the audience behind me debated leaving at intermission, while a couple sitting to my left right openly guffawed at Mrs. White’s final gesture. It’s not a good show, nor is it so bad it’s Love Never Dies good. For me, that’s a far bigger crime than bloody school pranks or electrocuting the student body.

Sarah Plain & Tall & Telekinetic

Shelley Winters in a 1978 made-for-TV Carrie ripoff streaming on Netflix? You can bet your Olympic swimming medal that has a place at The Doll’s House!

Quick Plot: The beautiful Patty and her mousy adopted sister Sarah are heading to college, the alma mater of their sorority queen mom/pointedly adopted sorority queen mom. Patty dreams of joining the likes of queen bee Jennifer (played by the always fabulously bitchy Morgan Fairchild) at the Alpha Bitcha Bitcha House (I didn’t write the name down, but I’m pretty sure that was it) while dowdy Sarah joins the girls with less money, looks, and manners over at Phi Blah Blah House. She also strikes up a mildly inappropriate romance with one of her teachers and reveals, as Patty is forced to play the Alpha Bitcha Bitcha role, a fairly obvious case of Carrie White.

Much like The Spell, The Initiation of Sarah is a made-for-TV leftover of the Carrie juggernaut. Apparently in the late 1970s, socially awkward teenage girls with telekinetic powers were all the rage, while their mean-girl tormenters ensured acting roles would always be available for icy blonds. Brunettes, on the other hand, were safely ensured the chance to play the dumpy girl’s even dumpier buddies (how Mia Farrow’s sister snuck in as Sarah’s violin-playing pal is a mystery) and thus keep the status quo safely in line.

And that’s were it stays in this far-too-slow movie. Though well acted by its young cast, The Initiation of Sarah is sadly duller than that freshman psychology class I took where my professor uttered the expression ‘um’ 60 times in two minutes (I counted, which was more interesting than the ummish lecture). As Sarah, Kay Lenz is fine, but hardly the tragic victim of Sissy Spacek, while sister Patty (Morgan Brittany) is quite likable, even if her story never finds a snug place to fit into the supernatural development of Sarah’s heritage. Because oh yeah...her birth mother was killed in a bewitching sorority ceremony by Shelley Winters. Or something.

See, Shelley Winters is Shelley Winters. Big, boisterous, intimidating at dinner parties and I imagine, DMV lines but also a presence that simply demands your attention. You understand why she’s credited as making a “special appearance” here because without the pure power of this sassy dame, The Initiation of Sarah would be pretty hard to survive.

It’s not a terrible movie; just a dull one. At around 95 minutes, The Initiation of Sarah somehow feels epic, even though the running time covers barely half a semester. A good deal of that is Netflix listing the film in the category of “Horror Films.” When more time is spent on Sarah’s Cinderella makeover and reinvigoration of her dowdy sorority than human sacrifice or dropping pianos on people (tease!), it makes for a tad souring of my evening.

High Points

Ain’t no bitch can deliver a line like “Girls! Put on your hoods!” with quite the same panache as Shelley

Low Points

If you’re going to spend five minutes setting up a piano being suspended from the second floor vicariously as minor villains pass over it, how dare you--HOW DARE YOU SIR I SAY--end the scene without...you know, ACTUALLY dropping the piano on someone

Lessons Learned

When a man you hardly know tells you that you look good in your bathing suit then escorts you into the water, he probably wants something a little more physical than synchronized swimming

Sororities aren’t all that bad. They just make you do horrible things to test your loyalty

In the 70s campus life, kissing was far more aggressive, perhaps because the whole damned world was drinking coffee

When lifting weights, think carefully before having your ticklesome girlfriend act as your spotter

The best insult to hurl at a nervous college student is to tease her for being a prodigy

Side Note

Apparently there exists a 2006 remake made for the ABC Family Channel and starring the TOTALLY mousy and unattractive Summer Glau in the title role, with Fairchild popping back in to play her mother. Not sure if there’s a shirtless Robert Hays or piano death though

Rent/Bury/Buy

I almost feel unqualified to give an ultimate ranking of this film. Is it fair to say I didn’t like The Initiation of Sarah because it wasn’t trashy? When the worst thing the bad girls do to our heroine is throw tomatoes and mud (or maybe poop; it’s more interesting if it’s poop, so let’s say poop) her way, it just doesn’t do much to give me any reason to smile.   The film is streaming, so it certainly doesn’t hurt to try out The Initiation of Sarah, but don’t expect a huge finale. There are a few deaths and a mild ‘splosion, but nothing that a little Piper Laurie prayers couldn’t top.

They're All Gonna Laugh At You (Until You Kill Them)

There is a great horror film about a chubby teenage girl waiting to be made.

The Spell is not it.

This isn’t too much of a shame. A TV movie made in the shadow of Carrie, The Spell is a brisk and entertaining slice of late ‘70s mediocrity that offers a few giggles matched by surprises. It’s perfectly fine for a quick Instant Watch even if you might forget everything about it one day after viewing. It’s fine. It is fine.

One of my favorite memoirs is Judith Moore’s Fat Girl, a painfully honest documentation of a woman battle-scarred by a lifetime of obesity. It literally hurts to read, and yet I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Oh. But I’m supposed to be talking about The Spell, which doesn’t hurt to watch but also...well...doesn’t quite make good on its potential.

Quick Plot: Teenage Rita is mildly overweight and majorly pissed about it and everything else in life. At school, the big-haired slim-waisted gymnasts tease her mercilessly. I suppose that’s bound to happen to the size 10 teen when every other student is in pristine physical condition. 

During one fateful day in gym class, Rita’s most outspoken tormenter has a deadly (and hilarious) accident, plummeting from the ceiling after she attempts a Ringling Brothers’ circus move on the rope. Anyone who’s seen Carrie--which, let’s face it, is why you’re watching the film to begin with--knows that a touch of telekinesis is surely at play.

See, Rita is, to put it kindly, surly. Aside from her sympathetic mom (Lee Grant), her family is cruel and friends nonexistent. Dad likes to make cutting fat comments and little sis (a tiny Helen Hunt) is a bad-pizza-making brat. Luckily for Rita, *someone* in town has an afterschool club on using psychic energy and little by little, her strength rows to increasingly bizarre murders, the best of which is the slowest spontaneous combustion of all time. Really it’s more a slow roast, which sounds much more delicious than it probably is.

The Spell wears its, ahem, influences on its belled ‘70s sleeve. On one hand, it’s an enjoyable enough slice of moldy cheese that passes 77 minutes as well as anything. On the other, it’s a huge missed opportunity.

The Carrie of Stephen King’s novel is not a Sissy Spacek size 4. She’s plump and pimply, and in that is a multi-dimensional story waiting to be told. The Spell could have done so. 

High Points

Maybe my sick day 50% functioning brain wasn’t at its most nerdy, but I was genuinely surprised by a few of the film’s twists

Low Points

As my review mostly states, it just seems like there was a genuinely interesting story to be told about Rita’s unhappiness. I really would’ve appreciated a film that dared to tell it

Lessons Learned

In the 1970s, it was standard physical fitness to be able to climb a rope

If the Nightmare On Elm Street saga has taught us anything, it’s that being a member of the swim team is a surefire way to a wet wild death. Take heed The Spell, take heed

The best way to show your unhappy psychic teenage daughter that you love her is to send the kid four thousand miles away for the next year of her life

Rent/Bury/Buy

Instant Watch is where The Spell belongs. It’s a breezy under-80-minute film that doesn’t really merit any effort, but is entertaining enough in its ‘70sness. One could do a whole lot better but hey...there’s also always a whole lot worse.

Friday Fixins

Bleh. January.

Not that one (though Betty Draper does make me use words that would make Dexter's sister-wife blush).


I'm talking this month, this cold, dry skinning, icy sidewalked month. It's a sloggish time for weather and work, and can you believe it? We still have to wait TWO WHOLE WEEKS for the inevitably amazing The Roommate. Sigh. We need some form of refreshment and thankfully, I've got a few random bursts of sunshine to shine your way.

First off, it's weekend vacation time with the virgins! In simpler terms, head over to The Blood Sprayer for my post on horror cinema's most complicated good girls (and boy) and while you're there, stick around for some truly spectacular content from an array of talented writers. It's like a Godiva box of chocolates without the hazelnut!

Psst. By the way, I'll give you a kitten if you can successfully prove you ever predicted you'd live to see Queen Amidala French kissing Sheitan.

Also, an exciting announcement from one of my most favoritest blogs out there: Planet of Terror is going pod! Cortez (the Killer) and the mysterious Complaint Department have started a podcast, an exciting burst of audio pleasure you can currently find streaming here. Get to it!


Lastly, this is your friendly reminder to prepare yourself for littleness. We're just 11 days away from The Deadly Doll's House First (Maybe) Annual February of the Vertically Challenged Villains Month du Shorties!  It's a long title for a short month. I'm ironic like that.

On my slate thus far, expect 28 days of posts including, but not limited to the following:


Blood gnomes, black devil dolls from hell, puppet people, puppets, dolls, dangerous worry dolls, ghoulies, klowns, evil fetuses, evil babies possessed by sinful dwarfs, carnivorous tree babies, leprechauns, dummies, sociopathic children, brainwashed backwoods children, murderous African tribal dolls, more dolls, bad seeds, and the incarnation of angry aborted fetuses come to life in the form of homicidal midgets!

Contain your excitement (or wig, in the '90s slang kinda way) and get your posts ready!

Michael's Monster Mash

I bet you must think I love Halloween. 

You don't know me.

364 days of the year, I'm a normal guy. A little quiet. Kinda tall. But on the whole, not much different from your average former mental patient bearing a slight resemblance to William Shatner.

I’m cool with that. If I had wanted to be famous, I would’ve done a reality show, not gone head-to-head with Mickey Rourke to see which beefy thespian could sabotage his career with worse script choices. There’s a reason I didn’t do Halloween III: no way was I gonna share the stage with Tom Atkins. That dude elevates every performance around him and before you could’ve said silver shamrock, I’d be a red carpet fixture.

I don’t need that.\n\nYet here we are again. It’s October 30th, and like any supervillain with a franchise to his name, I gotta go to work. It's tiring. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically. Sure, it doesn't look like I run fast, but if you saw my frenemy Leslie' Vernon's self-indulgent documentary (more on that douche later), you'd know that it takes both physical agility and self-discipline to take such long strides while still looking like we're just strolling down the street with time to kill. I didn't even get to the blood stains, bullet wounds, or fact that I've never ever had the chance to just wind down with some leftover fun-sized Milky Ways and enjoy Charlie Brown's misadventures.\n\nIn a way, I totally know how Santa Clause feels. Except I’ve never tasted a butter cookie with green sprinkles.\n\nSo this year, I decided to do something different. It helped that I planned ahead and got my killing spree out of the way in August. Some may say it's not the same, but my mom seemed to approve. She even got me a pony, and that’s just super awesome to the extreme. Besides: my psychiatrist keeps bugging me about getting out of my shell or self-imposed blackness or whatever, so I wanted to show him that I'm not as unresponsive as he thinks. Then he died. For like, the eighth time. So now I have no ascot to prove anything to but guess what? I already sent out the invites.\n\nGruuuuuuuuuuunt. First of all, this might surprise you, but I don't...well...I don't have many friends. I go to bars and just sort of blend into the dark lighting, plus I’m straight edge which just adds pressure. I'm not into sports cause they're a little too competitive. I tried Craig's List "strictly platonic" ads but I didn't trust the purity of the posters and, well, a few complaints, lawsuits, and mangled bodies and now I'm banned from that entire site. I was on Facebook for a while but it just felt like everyone there was putting on a front. I was about to give up when this great new invention called Twitter came around. I like it cause I don't write good (as I always say, spell check is the greatest thing since sliced necks) and with just 140 letters (someone told me they were "characters" but I've never heard of that word before), it's hard to mess up too badly. \n\nI won’t lie: it’s pretty darn confusing. I'm not too computer savvy, so I just usually "follow" whoever "follows" me. This was really weird at first. I'm so used to doing the stalking, I didn’t quite realize what all the lingo meant. Stabbed a lot of girls named Brit.ney and learned a valuable lesson about how women never look as good as they do on the Internet. Also how women on the Internet are not usually women in real life. \n\nAnyway, once I realized that Twitter was a great forum to collect identities and send out news, I posted an invite for my Monster Mash Halloween Party. \n\nThis is really hard to say--and not just because I don’t usually use words--but I’m actually super nervous about tomorrow night. I can strangle any old class clown, but when it comes to social events, I’m about as smooth as Leatherface’s chainsaw. \n\nSpeaking of which...he’s totally coming. I know this not because he RSVP’d, but because every ten minutes since the e-vite left my outbox, he’s been calling me with a million questions. What’s the dress code? What’s the face code? Will there be chili? It’s like the dude’s never been to a party before. I mean, sure I’ve never been invited to a high school dance or parents-away kegger, but like any slasher, I’ve crashed enough to take some notes. \n\nSad thing is, he’s not even the worst one. I told Tiffany and Chucky Lee Ray it’s okay to bring their son, but apparently there’s all sorts of family drama there. I need to know if I should cancel the clown. According to his website, Pennywise doesn’t refund deposits the day of and I already have bad credit. \n\nJason won’t come if Freddy comes, Freddy won’t come if Jason comes, Norman’s waiting for permission from his mother, and Kang and Kodos are trying to get me to foot their galactic toll bills. I stupidly promised the Crypt Keeper that he could be in charge of the music, but Leslie’s totally convinced the old corpse is just trying to get control of the microphone to try out some of his comedy material. \n\nI can handle pressure okay, and I wouldn’t really be complaining about all of this if there wasn’t one guest that I’m actually excited to see. Now I know I shouldn’t jinx a good thing, but I really like her. She’s totally my type: skinny, shy, studious, virginal, non gender specific named, and best of all, she totally knows what it’s like to have superpowers that don’t match up with social skills. It’s a match made in heaven, except for the fact that she’s convinced she’s going to hell and well, to be honest, she might be out of my league. I know Jamie Lee was prom queen material, but that wasn’t until after I broke her in. Carrie’s a genuine princess and I’m just a lump in a jumpsuit. Worst of all, Leslie’s been eyeing her for months now and he’s way slicker than I could ever dream of being. Not that I dream. You have to sleep first.\n\nWell, I should stop dilly dallying and start decorating for the big night. Party City had a sale on those Halloween Christmas lights and I bullied some babysitters into carving pumpkins, so I think that on that front, I'll be in good shape. Or a good Shape. Ha! I am ON! \n\nAs for the party, you’ll have to come back next week to find out how it turned out. Any advice would be totally appreciated below. Like, for example, trick-or-treaters who don’t wear costumes. I’m supposed to kill them, right? \n\nHelp me out guys. I reallllllllly don’t want to embarrass myself in front of so many of my peers. They already have me slumming in 3-D next year. How much lower can I go?\n\n

Quick Fix Finales

Paul Solet’s Grace is a fascinating, disturbing, and haunting little thriller that wedges itself under your skin, then dies suddenly before it can lay eggs. It’s effective and upsetting but for me, it stumbles in its third act by forcing its characters into a contrived and somewhat predictable violent confrontation.

I love cinematic violence. Splatter films have their own sub-section in my DVD collection and my heart tends to drop a tad when it learns a kickass trailer is approved for thirteen year olds. Recent favorites include the French import Inside, which provided a powerful example of how to end with (SPOILERS) a do-it-yourself C-sectiom and not have your audience feel exploited, and William Friedken’s woefully underrated Bug, a play-turned-film chronicling a romantic descent into mania that culminated in a horrifically graphic nightmare. The flawed but fun Silent Hill is rightfully memorable for its razor-sharp ivy-filled finale. And yes, Carrie is a classic example of how to build character and story well enough to earn a 20 minute massacre. These films--and their endings--leave the audience feeling hurt and abused, but not cheated.

Think of the apex of baby horror, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. It never teases us with the suggestion that poor Mrs. Woodhouse is going to have to stab her way through a coven of satanists or wrestle her evil neighbors (although the sight of pregnant Mia Farrow tumbling with the gloriously spry Ruth Gordon would have bested Yoda’s dual with Christopher Lee as greatest fight in mainstream filmdom). There is no final chase with slain civilians or blood-soaked showdown. Rosemary confronts her tormentors and makes a decision, leaving us terrified of what’s to come by the sheer force of suggestion.

One of my favorite films of this year so far has been Neill Blomkamp's incredibly innovative District 9. Thoughtful, skeptical, and not afraid to twist and reshape the typical summer blockbuster cliches, this film comes dangerously close to being Great (yes, with a capital) and then...well it gets really...fun. By its final act, the documentary style and social subtext so carefully explored in the opening half hour take a break while a Trasformers-y chase and shootout closes the show. It’s fun to watch and rich with suspense, but ultimately, it reduces what started out as an almost subversive and important popcorn film to a smarter-to-than-your-average alien actionfest.

Some films take the opposite route by opening with the money shots and slowly fooling us with second act smarts. Take Larry Cohen's God Told Me To, which features a terrifying first scene wherein a madman guns down New York extras and quickly moves slows down into more heady fare. Its most disturbing scene is a mere monologue (although said speech is said by a father explaining how he killed his entire family). The blockbuster juggernaut The Sixth Sense is admittedly low on the type of violence found in a Clark film, but notice how it also leaves its entire last 30 minutes to quiet moments as characters deal with the supernatural in calm yet creepy ways. Even Shion Sono's Suicide Club--an avant garde piece of sorts busting with blood, flattened-out human skin, and stickily stubborn earlobes--ultimately steps away from its insane visual nastiness to wrap up (kind of) its plot (although for some, J-pop may be more frightening and offensive than jumping in front of a moving subway or slicing off your own hand while making a sandwich for the kids).

This brings me back to Grace, which is indeed a strong and worth-your-money movie. The problem I have with it (cue SPOILER sirens) is not that it ends with an act of violence between its two female leads, but that it reduces a complex relationship into what you can do with a hammer and ex-girlfriend. Did I expect family counseling or a custody case? No, but the sudden resolution felt too easy in eliminating a character that had been developed so carefully throughout the film. I believe anyone is capable of violence, and more specifically, that most mothers would not hesitate in doing whatever it would take to protect their children. 

It just doesn't mean that's all we deserve to watch.

Agree, disagree, want to end this with a quick and sudden act of violence? Leave it in word form below: