Director Ari Aster
Starring Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro
Brian’s Rating: 3/5
Listen to the full review in Horror Bulletin Podcast #4
This is a weird movie. It starts out with Grandma’s funeral, except no one is very broken up about her death. The old lady was secretive, and not at all pleasant toward the end.
Young Charlie (Milly Shapiro) starts getting weird. She cuts off the heads of dead birds and starts getting visions of Grandma.
Her mother, Annie, a professional dollhouse designer, also starts getting visions, but doesn’t think much of it at first. Surprisingly early in the movie, there is a fatal accident (truly worthy of a “Final Destination” scene) that had me laughing at the crazy unexpectedness of it. The rest of this movie revolves around the aftermath of this scene, so I won’t go into too much detail here.
The middle of the movie feels like a mashup of “Ordinary People” where we are deep in the much of grief, anger, guilt, and blame. The end section is definitely right out of “Rosemary’s Baby.” Much of the movie takes place from the point of view of Annie, and for the first hour-and-a-half, it seems completely possible that she’s simply gone crazy and nothing is really happening. They could have gone that route, but they didn’t.
The last fifteen minutes is where things get batshit crazy, and while it’s fun to watch, it doesn’t make much sense. Where did all these other people come from?
It had a few good jump scares, and a lot of family angst and drama, but it also felt like it left out a lot of explanation, and therefor stuff happens for no clear reason.