When I first saw this hanging around on iTunes it had this poster attached to it:

That didn’t really do much for me so I blew it off and then came yesterday, who knows when i’ll get this finished and posted, but I saw it again and looked it up on the net and I saw this poster which I totally dug, so I rented it up:

THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

This movie is weird. It’s all kinds of good and awesome on one hand, but then, all of the awesomeness is taken away at the same time by logic. Let’s analyze. This starts off pretty weird. A little boy in a dress is playing with a marionette. His mom comes screaming into the room cussin’ it up about “HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO WEAR A FUCKING DRESS AND PLAY WITH DOLLS?????” so she rips the dress off of him and tears the marionette to shreds with scissors and storms out of the room, leaving the scissors behind. So, naturally, like everyone did back then, he cuts off his little weenie with the scissors and we head in to the opening credits. When I saw that I was all “OK that was just fucking creepy” and then I thought – wait – he’s just a little kid – if his mom doesn’t want him wearing dresses and playing with dolls, how is he getting dresses to wear and dolls to play with in the first place?? I doubt he’s driving to the store and purchasing these products. So – we had a pretty awesome and creepy scene but, wait, what?

This scene here, depicted by the still above. Our lead (at the bottom of this page) went to a seance to talk to her dead little sister (her dead little sister who was run over by a school bus in the school parking lot, by the way) because she blames herself for her sister’s death. Of course, while she’s talking to her a vengeful ghost attaches herself to her and now we have a “ghost hanging around wanting something story”. Anyway, that night she wakes up looks around and there’s something really fucking icky slithering out of her doorway. Of course, instead of hiding under the bed, wishing it would go away, she follows it out in the hall and sees this (above)! Creepy!! Now we’ve been introduced to the ghost and wait, that fucking icky slithering shit was the ghost’s HAIR?? Wait. Was the ghost lying on her back, crawling on the ground like snake going out the door? Wait a sec there…

Then there’s a second story going on. A man kidnaps women off the street and turns them into  disgusting human marionettes. The special effects in these scenes are sphincter clenching good – and gross – and wait, after he makes her do her little dance with his giant hand-thingies, wait, is he jacking off?? He is – and he’s wearing a dress!! So – that’s got to be the kid from the opening who’s all grown up, fucked up and a deranged serial killer!!! But, he cut off his cock at the beginning. What’s he beating off with? Huh?

And then, the end really kind of fell apart. So, he’s got our lead trapped down in his torture workshop. The previous victims he had tied up in a chair, sedated with something injecty. When she wakes up she’s just on the ground in a nighty. When he comes in he just looks at her while she fakes sleeping and then he starts working on the metal for her doll elbows and knees. There’s kind of a cool struggle as she tries to make her escape and he’s got her pinned down screaming “THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!! THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!” giving us a hint that the screenwriter had some deep meaning and development  in to how and why this guy is so fucked up and then she escapes and climbs out of the hole in the ground and starts running through the forest. Luckily, with him gaining on her, she runs in to a random SUV, finds the keys above the sun visor and speeds off. We know it’s not his car because he hops in his own truck and takes off after her. So wheeeeeeeeeeeeeere did that come from again???

There’s also a couple of things I noticed that bothered me that I would like to address. I know I am sounding harsh on this movie but I actually did like it. But, I like to keep an eye on things and my OCD won’t let me get away without mentioning them.

At one point they suspect the creepy, masturbating guy upstairs is the killer. So she sneaks in to his room to get some files off of his computer and of course he comes home early so she has to hide behind his desk. As as he walks in to his room, after having an argument with someone outside, he decides to sit down at his desk and yank it. Right in front of her face. So he pulls down his pants, clicks on a file and KZZZZZAAACCCKKKKKK she sticks a letter opener in the top half of he electrical outlet. FZZZZZZZZ everything goes dark and he leaves to fix the breaker. As she’s crawling out, that same outlet is shown and the computer is plugged in the top half of the outlet and there are no signs of the KZZZACCCKKKY explosion. Details, gentlemen, details.

Also – and this may sound pervy, but it’s just something obvious. After she escapes and is running around in the forest wearing just a small one piece nightgown, and crawling around for her life after she wrecks the SUV, she is very obviously wearing black underwear. In the big kill shot – they are white. Oh well – I actually really did like this movie – it just had some problems. I don’t know if they were “on the fly” problems or what but, overall, still decent enough.

On another note – a few months ago our friend Zoe challenged me in her polite way to watch that first Harry Potter movie and I, in all of my glory, said “no way Jose, not ever for this guy!!” and she called me a name I can’t print out here so I said something like “FINE I’LL SHOW YOU I’LL WATCH THEM ALL!!!!!!” and today begins our series, aptly and brilliantly called THE POTTER PERCEPTIONS! Please head on over there and see what we thought on the first one by