Why ?

His cover had been blown, and his location was made known.

I was wondering the same question about the dad. What was the point? The dad didn't know anything at that point in the story, and the waste of a getaway car (in the middle of a field) was significant. Didn't make sense.

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The army guy tries to explain it by saying that he gets rid of anybody who might know who he is. He knows that the family knows he isn't really David Collins so he kills them all (as well as the waitress friend and the entire cafe). Kind of extreme but for "David" keeping his identity secret is the only thing that matters.

"She called me a dirty word."

What bothers me more than why he killed them is why he even went to all the trouble of winning their trust and moving into their lives in the first place. There was even less rhyme or reason to *that* than to why he killed them -- he killed them because he was military-brainwashed to kill anyone who discovered he wasn't who he claimed to be.

But why bother even targeting this family? He had money, he didn't need a place to stay. There was no reason to claim to know their son. He didn't need anything from them.

I was waiting to find out that something awful had happened to him because of the son and he wanted revenge on the family -- that would give substance and and explanation to his motives to even hook up with them.

Or that he killed the son and in a sick way wanted to do the same to the family.

HOrrible flick, nothing made any damn sense.

Like others have said...his cover was blown. The guy was practically half robot at that point. Not literally, but whatever experiment he had undergone had taken away a lot of his humanity, at least the good parts, like empathy and compassion, guilt, shame, etc.

He was made to just be a man on a mission and to carry out that mission however possible, no matter what. When things went south the only way he knew and was programmed to deal with it was to clean up, and that meant murder, unfortunately.

I don't think he went to their house with the intent to do that. I am of the belief his intentions were real and genuine, to help them. But David thinks of that in terms of, again, a mission and maybe not in the way we normally would. Help them by being there for them, and being a shoulder to lean on or whatever, but for him...he literally meant to go systematically to each of the members and better their lives. Obviously, he didn't do that because his ways and his past caught up to him, but if they had not I think that's what he was trying to do even if it wasn't seen as helpful from them.

Obviously it sucks that that's how things went, but I don't think it hindered the film. I think it was there to prove just how far gone he was. It was sort of an, "oh shit," moment when you realize he really means business and he's not just creepy he's downright terrifying and broken. If we had not had that and it went right into the Halloween maze ending, it wouldn't have made a ton of sense and would've been fairly jarring in terms of his behavior. The whole last act is just one big escalation for him and the parents being killed was a step in that.

That's how I read it anyways. I enjoyed the film.

Who hasn't killed a family after claiming to be a close friend of their recently deceased child?

SPOILERS:

I think they could've explained it better. By that time, I was along for the ride... and wanting to find out how that Balisong would come back to bite "David" at the end.

I took it that he was originally going to try to at least comfort them, since he and Caleb were both in that special program. Caleb must've died in some horrible way, maybe even in the hospital fire that was supposed to erase all the subjects of that experiment. So I thought "David" took the identity of one friend & went to comfort the others' family. His plan was to then try to move on to a normal life.

For me, the Major picked up the story when it began to flag. Plus, I liked that Anna was the strong one & actually turned gullible, naive Luke around, just in time.

I thought the end was a bit "Misery" or better, "Halloween" with the "oh shit!" from Anna. But, I guess it's better than a blah happy ending.

Thumb-up from me.