The Stepford Lives

 

One of my favorite measurements for a horror movie is to examine what kind of dreams I have the night I watch it. For Vivarium, they were WEIRD.

That's a good thing.

Quick Plot: Gemma and Tom are growing increasingly frustrated by their limited findings in their quest for the perfect home. Having exhausted the nearby possibilities, they decide to check out Yonder, a new suburban development that seems a little far out of the way of Gemma's schoolhouse and Tom's landscaping job.

They're led to Yonder by Martin, an incredibly odd realtor who doesn't seem to know how to speak to other human beings. Yonder itself seems nice enough: street after street of identical avocado green 2-bedroom homes with modern kitchens and compact yards. There's even a pre-decorated baby boy's room just waiting for the right couple to give to their first male child.

Just as Gemma begins to question where the rest of the neighbors are, Martin vanishes, leaving Gemma and Tom to hop back in their car and hightail it out of there. 

Except, of course, there is no way out.

Well, maybe I spoke too soon. After trying to escape a few of the old fashioned ways, Tom and Gemma receive a mysterious delivery in a Blue Apron-style cardboard box. Unlike their past vacuum-sealed tasteless food, this one contains a newborn baby with a simple message: Raise the child and be released.

Talk about society forcing parenthood on childless couples! The child, it turns out, is a weird little thing, one who ages at an exponential rate but remains a rather horrible, inhuman creature who insists on dressing like a Mormon missionary. Tom and Gemma have agreed to treat it like a thing, feeding it cereal to stop the incessant screaming but avoiding any hints of affection.

One day, Tom discovers some sort of gooey dirt underneath his astroturf lawn. With nothing else to do, he starts to dig, hoping he can discover a path out of Yonder or just keep himself busy and farther away from the incredibly creepy Young Sheldon wannabe that wants to be his son. Gemma, a schoolteacher, can't help but become intrigued by the kid's development.

Vivarium is my kind of movie (see my love of the much underrated House Hunting). It's a genuinely unique but focused premise, and writer/director Lorcan Finnegan lays it out with such twisted simplicity that I think I fell in love. Granted, I find the idea of forced parenthood of monster children to be my deepest nightmare, making me an easy mark for this kind of story, but there's a lot more here: a passionate but fragile romantic relationship thrown into a cruel test before it's really ready, suggestions of otherworldy creatures with a terrifying master plan, literal layers of strangeness, and more.

I dug it.

High Points

I truly hope Imogen Poots enjoys genre filmwork because my GOSH is she good at it. This woman deserves a much bigger career than she thus far has, but I wonder if she actively picks her projects because the roles themselves give her so much room to explore. She's as good here as she was in Black Christmas, conveying such a deep well of dying enthusiasm for her life while still having some kind of conscience about her decisions

Low Points

I actually really like how Jesse Eisenberg is used, but I do wish there was just a little more charm to him at the beginning to justify what Gemma really saw in him in the first place

Lessons Learned

I know we all watched The Babadook thinking, "this is the worst child in horror movie existence" but guess what? This kid makes Sam look like Rhoda Penmark as seen by those who didn't suspect her of serial killing. My point here, in terms of a lesson, is that there are simply no bottom to the depths of how awful children can really be

Rent/Bury/Buy

Quarantine has put Vivarium in more prominent spotlight than it might have otherwise, and sure: a story about the insanity of being stuck in one place with the same faces, homeschooling an unstable boy certainly speaks to our time, but in any other year, I think I still would be highly recommending this film. There's a strong sense of discipline at work in Finnegan's work here, and I'm excited to see more. 

A House Hunting We Shall Go

2013's House Hunting was recommended to me (and others) via my Feminine Critique cohostess snowball Christine Makepeace. Despite her disparaging remarks about one of my favorite recent horror indies YellowBrickRoad, I figured I'd take her word that this was a good newbie.

Let's see.

Quick Plot: Two imperfect families searching for a new house happen upon the same bargain-priced steal located not at all suspiciously in the middle of nowhere. The Thomsons, led by the always welcome character actor Art LeFleur, are recovering from the tragic death of their daughter and the ongoing surliness of their teenage son. 

In the other corner are the equally complicated Hays. Patriarch Charlie (since he's played by Marc Singer, he will hence be known as The Beastmaster) didn't waste much time following his wife's suicide in marrying Susan, a younger nurse who doesn't get along so well with Emmy, his teen daughter. The families are accidentally united when a young woman without a tongue runs in front the Hays' car, causing an accident and lots of confusion. All seven hop into the Thomsons' wheels to get help, only to find themselves driving in circles until the gas runs out.

Now trapped on the property, the Hays and Thomsons find that the empty house has a few treats in store for them, including a daily serving of a can of 'stewpendous' beef stew that mysteriously appears every morning. Trying to walk towards the road never ends well, with family members finding themselves right back in their makeshift prison or worse, talking to darker versions of their psyches. Considering a few of the houseguests have fairly unhappy memories lurking just under the surface, this doesn't end well.

House Hunting is the first full-length film by writer/director Eric Hurt and it demonstrates remarkably mature instinct and skill. The cast (a mix of unknowns and vets) all contribute believable, carefully balanced performances that establish real, if deliberately unextraordinary people. There are a few surprisingly effective jump scares that never force themselves on the viewer, and a whole load of fascinating mystery just out of our reach.

Oddly enough, the film House Hunting most reminded me of was the aforementioned (and incredibly divisive) YellowBrickRoad. Both smartly feature casts of mixed ages, avoiding the typical teenagers-in-peril tedium and offering more interesting character dynamics. Both films are set in a seemingly benign location that has slyly trapped its characters, leaving them ripe for vicious and violent cabin fever. While I enjoyed the oddness of YellowBrickRoad a little more, I will easily concede that House Hunting is ultimately a far more satisfying watch. 

I mean, Beastmaster!

High Points

House Hunting never has to overtly tell us what's causing the horrors to happen. We get flashbacks, we get conversations, but we never need to absolute acknowledgment of 'this is happening because of this and this.' It says a lot about Hurt's writing that he is able to convey the complete picture without having to resort to any dumbing down

Low Points

SPOILER!

...although it does lead me to wonder what the second pairs of families introduced in the last scene did to deserve their presumed fate

Lessons Learned

The first rule of real estate: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably involves ghosts and death and gross beef stew and that kind of unpleasant stuff

The only thing worse than being cooped up in a house with no TV or Internet for a long stretch of time is being cooped up in a house with no TV or Internet AND one of those impossible jigsaw puzzles that taunt you with their difficulty

Canned beef stew might taste like death, but its nutritious contents will help to keep your hair looking decent and shiny for a few months

Rent/Bury/Buy

Now streaming on Netflix Instant, House Hunting is indeed a surprising treat. This isn't the scariest or most innovative film, but it's solidly made and able to sidestep so many of the standard tropes we've come to expect with modern horror. Give it a go.