This movie really creeped me out. The masks, the ninja like abilities of the strangers, the music, and the fact that I had to go home to an empty dark apartment after watching it. I can admit I jumped once, luckily though I didn’t spray the soda that I was drinking at the moment, for that would’ve been embarrassing.
All the things in this worked so well to make it creepy. The masks they were, while up close and in the light were pretty much all happy nice masks. But in the dark and from the distance they seemed to take on a new shade of scary. The doll-faced girl looked very much like a ghost from a distance, large dark eyes, small mouth, no real way to making out features other then the contrast of the eyes and mouth. But the ‘dad’ figures mask was the creepiest. What can only be described as a burlap sack with a smiley face painted on.
The music for this is was what really set me on edge. Through out the movie they keep playing with a small record player in the house, all the songs they play are very happy and pleasant sounding, but the lyrics seemed to match what was going on with what was happening on the screen. They even used the fact that it was a record, and made it skip all the time to intensify the moment.
The thing I was most curious about was their marketing for this movie. Saying it was based on actual events. And after a little research it seems that it wasn’t really based of one event, but several. There was an event from the writer/directors childhood that made him start this script. And it seems that a lot of the motivations and actions of these strangers were taken from several of the Manson murders. Even one of the games that they used to play on people, where they’d sneak into peoples houses and rearrange items, what they called “creepy crawling”. But the story is mostly taken from murders that happened at a resort in Keddie, CA, where three people were found tied up, stubbed and beaten with a hammer.
My only complaint is somewhat with the story. While I do like that it never explains the motivations of these strangers other then “they were home”. It doesn’t really explain much about the back story of the couple central to the story. Its obvious they had some sort of falling out, but it never truly says what happened, even things like the director making a point of getting a shot of the boyfriends bloodied knuckles, but never saying how they got that way. But, honestly, I completely forgot all about that once the masked ones show up. Was only when thinking back to the story afterwards did I remember these facts.
All the things in this worked so well to make it creepy. The masks they were, while up close and in the light were pretty much all happy nice masks. But in the dark and from the distance they seemed to take on a new shade of scary. The doll-faced girl looked very much like a ghost from a distance, large dark eyes, small mouth, no real way to making out features other then the contrast of the eyes and mouth. But the ‘dad’ figures mask was the creepiest. What can only be described as a burlap sack with a smiley face painted on.
The music for this is was what really set me on edge. Through out the movie they keep playing with a small record player in the house, all the songs they play are very happy and pleasant sounding, but the lyrics seemed to match what was going on with what was happening on the screen. They even used the fact that it was a record, and made it skip all the time to intensify the moment.
The thing I was most curious about was their marketing for this movie. Saying it was based on actual events. And after a little research it seems that it wasn’t really based of one event, but several. There was an event from the writer/directors childhood that made him start this script. And it seems that a lot of the motivations and actions of these strangers were taken from several of the Manson murders. Even one of the games that they used to play on people, where they’d sneak into peoples houses and rearrange items, what they called “creepy crawling”. But the story is mostly taken from murders that happened at a resort in Keddie, CA, where three people were found tied up, stubbed and beaten with a hammer.
My only complaint is somewhat with the story. While I do like that it never explains the motivations of these strangers other then “they were home”. It doesn’t really explain much about the back story of the couple central to the story. Its obvious they had some sort of falling out, but it never truly says what happened, even things like the director making a point of getting a shot of the boyfriends bloodied knuckles, but never saying how they got that way. But, honestly, I completely forgot all about that once the masked ones show up. Was only when thinking back to the story afterwards did I remember these facts.
1 comment:
The move was very creepy....atmosphere wise. I could enjoy the movie on that level but you are right about the rather "thin" storyline....it affected my "future" enjoyment of the movie, meaning it didn't stay with me and I will probably only see the movie once.
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