In defense of Mockingbird, even its ending. (Spoilers!)

I'm not going to comment on atmosphere, pacing, sound design, camera work, etc... Regardless of what one might think of the story or characters in The Strangers or this film, I think this director has proven himself to be capable with the technical aspects of a suspense driven movie. That being said...

I know a lot of viewers had a problem with the characters making bad decisions. However, I think it's believable the characters would behave the way they did. Leonard seemed a bit on the immature side, so I can see him being naive enough to go along with it. And as far as the other characters are concerned: they had been terrorized the whole evening. The husband started out pretty level headed... But once the animal was killed and they thought their kids were in danger, it only makes sense they wouldn't be thinking straight at the time. Same goes for the young woman. I mean--she's alone and terrified. It only makes sense they'd be paranoid and mistrusting by the time they run into each other.

The only thing that was silly to me was the revelation of who orchestrated it all. I don't have trouble believing that the kids had all that equipment. I was under the impression that the mansion was the main kid's family's. That's enough for me to go along with believing that the kids were rich and spoiled. However, like other posters on this board, I wish the killers were left anonymous.

Also: I may be wrong, but I noticed throughout just how many cliches were crammed into this movie. Not just that, but everything seemed to be taken from another movie (Saw, Rob Zombies' movies, Paranormal Activity, Magic, Vacancy, Funny Games, etc.). Maybe it's because of the film's title/titular location, but I got the impression that this was intentional. Not to be a spoof of those cliches in the way Scream was, but as an attempt to see if those cliches could be put together in such a way that they would still be effective. That may explain the decision to end on with a "creepy kid ending."

I could be wrong about that last bit, but that was my thinking the whole way through, which helped me enjoy the movie immensely despite its more obvious flaws.