Some of this was skipped, or not fully shown or explained, however most of it was not integral to the plot imo. Whether or not the doctor (Donald) was actually killed or just injured - who cares? If he lived, great. If he didn't, add him to the body count. Doesn't change the movie either way. Landau appears to be dead, he doesn't make any more noise after being stabbed and thrown down the cellar, but I agree that knife with which he was stabbed didn't look up to the job. However he is not heard from again, so we can assume he must be dead. "Tom Smith" meeting up with the wife and sister is a serious stretch, I give you that one. How would he know who they are, and to meet them at a protest rally? We never see anything indicating how this could come about. As for why he helped and then switched, we know he is unstable, so trying to rationalize his behavior is a losing effort. Potter not knowing what he looked like we already know - he always hid his face when Potter came in the room. Why he didn't hide his face later in public, like at the protest - that's a bigger issue/plot hole. Letting the girl live - again, not integral to the plot but a fair question. The rapist seemed surprised at the girl's lack of fear. Maybe he thrived on fear and when she didn't show it, his rapist instinct didn't kick in. Who knows. First night of the blackout they raided the store and stole the van (and killed a guy in the parking lot). Maybe they wanted to lay low after that. The two bodies in the closet - I don't think the bodies would smell so soon (a few hours). I'm not sure how much blood there was, I thought one if not both of them were strangled.
Speaking of shoddy police work, I have a bigger problem with the cops not realizing that Tom Smith was an escaped mental patient. They should have booked everyone at the station and ran fingerprint/identity checks...how would he not have turned up in their database? He was supposedly an infamous serial killer a few years back. That one doesn't make much sense.
As for the smartass kid, I was glad for that. Home Alone was lame enough, we don't need another pre-teen running around outsmarting everyone. The escapees not responding to Donald and the random messenger killing...again, you can't rationalize their actions. Why did they kill the guy in the parking lot? No reason for that either, but they did. The sister being nuts added to the tension for me, because we don't quite know what happened to her. If she relapses, what is that like? Will she just retreat into a corner, or will she grab a pair of scissors and go nuts herself? So that part of the plot was effective for me, what would she do if she went over the edge?
I too thought it was pretty good. I would have liked it even better if Doctor Donald turned out to be just as nuts and either joined the others or popped up at the end and took out Potter before the credits rolled, that would have been classic!
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