Problems


Disclaimer: Maybe these aren't really problems with the movie. I only watched it once, and can't bear to watch it again.

Accident makes no sense at all. A few obvious misdirections (drunk driving husband, stopping short in front of stalled vehicle), but then a truck comes up behind, horn blaring, and rams them? Can you at least give us some rationale behind that truck driver colliding with them? Was the driver asleep? Did his brakes fail? Was he a psycho killer out to ram every car he found on the road?

Why was she blinded by the accident? It is important, because that determines "how" blind she is, and how permanently. From the "carting around" scenes her vision seems impaired, blurred around the edges, but mostly still there, which made the apparent total blindness later on a surprise. Obviously there is no physical eye damage, so is it brain trauma? Detached retina? Hypo-mental plot device? What's up? Any other lasting physical or mental effects of the accident?

Really, if you were blind, you wouldn't get an entry-announcement alarm on your door the moment you got home? I have only known a few blind people in my life, but they definitely used every audio alarm they could to keep their surroundings known. She has her cane, and has been in the hospital long enough to have ordered home equipment. At least say the damn thing is on backorder from Amazon for six months to give us a reason!

The pictures. No matter how psycho you were as a caregiver, what would prompt you to put yourself in the object of your affection's pictures and post them on her wall? It just seems like they said "Oh, this would be crazy!" so did it instead of bothering to give even a cursory explanation of it. It is completely nonsensical, yet becomes a key part of the plot, which is Deadly Script Sin #7.

The pictures #2. She "feels" something is wrong with the picture. Was it a reprint, or did he cut out the husband and glue himself in from the back, or did he glue himself in from the front? Unless it was a reprint, the seams on any glue job would be really apparent, not just "feeling wrong". But, no explanation there.

The pictures #3: how many times was the friend in the apartment without Jeff having advance warning, and she never looked at the pictures hanging on the wall? I was wondering that the whole time until she found them stashed up above a cupboard in the bathroom, but they couldn't have been stashed away like that the whole time. Who goes in someone's house, sits feet away from family photos, and doesn't look over them, if only to give some pablum like "you have a beautiful family" etc?

The pictures #4: Finally, wouldn't she have noticed the pictures missing from the wall? They were clearly in a pattern on the wall, and when the doctored ones were taken down, that seemed an obviously "wrong" pattern. On closer inspection she would have seen nails or whatever where the missing pictures had been. But she never noticed? Why not?

The pictures #5: blind woman knocks picture off wall, feels broken glass, then decides to clear the glass away from the picture so she can run her fingers over it? Has blind person never cotten cut by shards of glass in her entire life (aside from the plot-device accident at the start of the movie, of course)?

The camera, a standard digital camera, whose menu system is apparently navigable by touch alone. Yeah, they don't make those. And, by the way, haven't psychos learned that you can take the memory cards out of those things?

Blind person in the shower neither hears the shower curtain (inches from her face) open up nor feels the cool air flow in. Come on, people. Hasn't just about everyone felt the change in temperature when a shower curtain is opened? Do you really think a blind person would not notice this?

Blind person falls down, her hand landing in a puddle of blood. She LOOKS over at her dead friend, scans her body, then is horrified. How does she know where her friend is in relation to the puddle? I mean, come on. No one thought, "Hey, let's have her reach out and figure out what is next to that puddle of blood, and maybe feel her friend's face or something to identify that it isn't a rolled up carpet next to a spaghetti sauce spill or whatever." Just poor writing and poor acting acting in concert here.

But then, maybe she smelled the rotting corpse? But she walks into the room without any indication that she smells anything odd, despite a corpse and puddle of blood having sat there drawing flies for several days. So, no smell, interestingly.

Oh! Maybe that scene at the beginning where everything was blurry with tunnel vision was what she still sees! That would explain it! So why was she standing in the shower staring at Jeff recording her? Okay, maybe not.

The call from the hospital. Months later, the hospital administrator finally does a background check of the guy she sent off with the newly blind woman? Good thing she called right when that guy psychologically snapped! Ugh.

The detective asks when the last time they saw the "neighbor" was, but the blind woman doesn't say anything about her car having been gone for the past couple days and then back today - which would have of course ended the story differently because the cop would have known the neighbor had been dead a few days and thus the stories didn't match up.

The detective asks for the casserole dish left behind to see if maybe it was a part of a "set" with the one that killed the woman. Wouldn't the more likely candidates for any "set" be other casserole dishes in the girl's apartment? And what does he get out of a cursory glance at it?

Or is the detective trying to be clever and suspects Jeff used the casserole dish to murder the neighbor girl, and that Jeff wouldn't be able to come up with that casserole dish which would have ... proven nothing. Still doesn't seem like a legitimate line of questioning unless maybe the detective had been watching crappy Lifetime movies all day.

Speaking of the casserole dish, Jeff has the presence of mind to take the dish away with him and somehow dispose of it, but doesn't think that maybe he should do something with the body or move the car, etc. Or, if he isn't going to move the car in case someone saw him, at least not tell the blind woman that the car wasn't there for multiple days. I mean, that's clearly going to be how he gets found out, because people aren't that dumb, right? Oh, no, I guess detectives in this fine city are that dumb, as are blind people.

Why the hell is Jeff spray painting the windows? I assume he has some plans for something upstairs that he doesn't want visible from outside, but what? Give us just a mention here, please!

There is apparently a cop stationed outside the window to monitor the blind woman's situation, presumably on the detective's hunch / bad feeling after talking with them.

Expository ending. Double ugh. What is this, a Lifetime movie?

... Oh.

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