MovieChat Forums > Mockingbird (2014) Discussion > Not the best, but not the worst film of ...

Not the best, but not the worst film of its type, either...

posted 9 years ago by dynamiteruby
7 replies | jump to latest

Just got done watching Mockingbird on Netflix. I'd been keen to watch this one ever since I saw it had been added. It's definitely not a hot mess like "Bryan Loves You," but neither is it entirely perfect, either.

I'm seeing a lot of complaints on IMDB that there were no unifying elements tying the three stories together, but I have to disagree - people saw, but they didn't really wanna see. The storm is the unifying thread - it gives us a very particular sense of time and place, just as much as the year that we're given at the start of the movie.

For a bit, I thought the couple were the ones living in the house in front of Beth's place (since she mentioned multiple times while on the phone with her mother that she was staying at a guest house), but as it turns out, they aren't.

What I'm kinda baffled by, more than anything else - like a lot of people - was the ending. A lot of the stuff going on throughout the course of the film makes little sense if you think about the ending. Most of the stuff that's done over the course of the movie wouldn't/couldn't be possible without several large teams of adults coordinating their 'attacks' on each household. I found myself thinking there was no way for just one person to be doing this at three separate houses, but even in 1995, this would have been pretty difficult without some pretty advanced planning. There's no more than 5 kids there and only one of them (that we know of) appears to be related to any of the central 'contestants' - what looks like the elder daughter of the couple - then there's a dark-haired kid, a slightly less-darker-haired kid and then the light-haired kid who was apparently the one in the original Ring-like video that kicks the whole mess off.

Not to mention -- five kids under the age of 12 who all listen to bombastic classic music? O.o

Like other people said, the movie is fantastic until you get to the ending. Even the big clash between the three 'teams' (if you will) is handled fairly well, but the ending right before the cut to credits just left me scratching my head. I found myself thinking that there were some similarities to "The Strangers" while I was watching this one, without knowing the director of the film was involved with this picture, as well. People complained about the ending to "The Strangers," too, but I could see more of a point to that ending than I did with this one.

None of the kids in the group at the end are old enough to drive - and at least one member of the group behind this whole plan would have to be able to drive in order for this whole thing to work. Most of these kids are so little, their feet wouldn't even reach the pedals. Rewinding and rewatching a bit, it does look like the two girls at the end can't possibly be Megan or Abby (as I suspected originally), since they both do look a good bit older than the two of them. So - five kids that are apparently completely unrelated to any of the 'contestants' in question.

I could see this being a weird sort of red curtain trilogy-style pre-sequel to The Strangers -- where even younger kids are depicted as doing even more messed-up stuff, just because they can. I mean, it's not unheard of for kids to be murderous little sociopaths, but in this case, the film gives us no reason to know who these kids are or why they're going to all this trouble. Are they all little supervillains in training working up to their graduation from Evil Genius U one day or what?

TL;DR: Interesting, creepy atmosphere at the start and genuinely likeable characters (I wound up feeling bad for everybody in this movie, except for the freaking kids at the end), but there are plot holes you could drive a planet through.

[–] Ripshin 9 years ago

It's far from fantastic, at any point. Your own comments make that clear. Also, you found everyone "likable"?

[–] ElectricWarlock 9 years ago

Not to mention -- five kids under the age of 12 who all listen to bombastic classic music? O.o

And that was why I envisioned these kids being child prodigies. They must've been EXTREMELY smart to be able to think of a plan like this and pull it off successfully. When you see child prodigies on talk shows, they always seem wise beyond their years and even have an incredible talent of some sort that amazes everyone...sometimes even playing classical music on the piano.  I sort of wondered if this was some type of initiation ritual for the kid on the tape to join some cult a la Children of the Corn. Kai Caster (one of the kids in clown makeup at the end) also starred in "Children of the Corn: Genesis" so it's kind of ironic that such an idea would come to my mind.

Anyways, I found the idea of children who are intelligent beyond belief yet have a streak of evil to be very creepy. I'm very surprised by the universally negative reaction this movie seems to have on this board. I liked it very much and found it to be one of the best movies I watched this year. But then again I enjoy most everything I watch. I typically have a good idea of whether or not I'll like a movie before I watch it so I don't watch a movie if I have a feeling it won't be good. I've waited for this movie for a while and wasn't disappointed.

[–] cobbler88 9 years ago

Exactly how much belief are we supposed to suspend here? Child prodigies are well prepared and talk a good game, but they're not exactly the most flexible sector of humanity. If they excelled in planning elaborate deaths, it would be the result of a considerable amount of time practicing it. There's no evidence of this presented in the film. And the chances that an entire group of them would come together (or that these children would be capable of carrying out the plans of a charismatic leader when likely none of them would even be able to do the driving necessary at certain parts of the film) is slim to none.

There are, of course, other technical things that not even adults would likely have been able to do in the time frame given.

Smart children ARE creepy, but only if what they do is plausible. Then again, we're talking about a movie in which 4 people got shot to death with 2 pistols in the big climax.

[–] ElectricWarlock 9 years ago

Just because something doesn't normally happen doesn't mean that it's impossible. This is a found footage film from the point of view of the protagonists, so I don't see how they could show the process of planning out a scheme like this. Unless the people who were filming were there with the villains at the time of the plan's conception which would be silly. Not only is an explanation impossible for this particular film but it's also unnecessary. I find it a lot more fun to just use my imagination. Too many films get bogged down over-analyzing each minute detail with explanation which seems boring to me. For all we know, there could've even been a supernatural presence guiding the children's every move. This IS a horror film after all so it wouldn't surprise me.

[–] cobbler88 9 years ago

I disagree. There was nothing fantastic here. Because the protagonists behaved in such an atypical manner they were not sympathetic. That meant that any potential for suspense was lost because there was no one to pull for. That left us just having to put up with screaming, crying idiots for about 70 minutes.

Then you get to the climactic scene, which was not only bad but if memory serves me correctly it was just about impossible. You have 3 camps, four people total. One couple has one gun, the single woman has the other, and the clown has nothing. How did all four of them end up shot to death? At best, 3 of them would fall in this fashion. Talk about a magic bullet.

What the final part of the ending revealed made the rest even more ridiculous. I believe the victims were given edited video/sound of events that had happened that very day. Aside from whether this band of children could have coordinated everything, purchased video cameras and driven cars around, how in 1995 would they have had the technology and know-how to edit tape and distribute it in that small of a window?

[–] sadworks 9 years ago

I kinda wanted to justify it as a Supernatural sense...like, These kids died in the previous videos, so they, in their afterlife, are cursed to terrorize a group of people, who will then turn and do the same to another group of unsuspecting victims...and it will continue in its cycle. That's the only way i can see any of this making sense.

[–] ralud-26577 8 years ago

No, never known movie ghosts to collect video tapes.