For Muse Watson Fans

“If I Die Before I Wake” affords Muse one of his most entertaining
entrances: Crashing through the home’s locked front door, he rides it to
the floor, and through his stocking mask announces to the floor-level camera
lens “We’re in.”

Muse’s Daryl is a truly amazing invention. On the actor’s periodic chart
(where the relative *gravitas* of a character’s personality and demeanor are
measured) most of Muse’s characterizations are notable for their relative
density: as ordinary folk weighed down by their responsibilities or personal
losses they often seem solid, still, and relatively taciturn. Daryl, by
contrast is a home-invading tornado of meth-powered madness barreling
through a quiet suburban household spreading death and destruction.

His snaggle-toothed meth-mouth barking orders, threats and curses Daryl’s a
veteran tweaker in the throes of a six-day high. He’s constantly in motion
with an odd, spider-like gait -- yet very nimble, as if only his boots keep
him on the ground. The only time this dynamo falls still is while watching
a home video of the family he’s destroying frolicking on the beach. The
warm, loving and trusting relationship between family members is as foreign
and unknown to him as some exotic landscape. Transfixed by the images on the
screen before him, he discovers he isn’t only seeking the family’s wealth,
or exercising his sadistic pleasure having power over others, or simply
looking for a place to lie low. He wants that uncomplicated trust and love
that children in normal families have – that he’s been robbed of – even if
it means kidnapping little tot Mary to get it.

Daryl’s interactions with Mary might have been as repugnant as those with
every other character he’s brutalized so far. He’s not aiming to terrify
her, though; he’s trying to win her over as best he can. Because we know
Daryl’s a walking minefield of poorly controlled impulses, even the scene of
him dancing with Mary “like a big girl” is fraught with implicit threat. But
whenever Muse shares the screen with Coryanne Sennet he seems no sterner
than a strict uncle -- any threat to her person or innocence is pretty much
left to audience interpretation. Because of this delicate balancing act in
Daryl’s fractured black soul, his scenes with little Mary are the only place
I see the teensiest bit of Muse, bless his heart, operating behind Daryl’s
menacing eyes to not traumatize the little actress. I can see why Mrs.
Watson prefers that Muse not bring Daryl home with him.


"I thought I told you to come alone."