I agree. I thought the filter added an eerie, supernatural-type glow which radiated the color of a blood moon during the outdoor scenes, and it didn't bother me one bit. It easily supported the fact that she was isolated in some alternate dimension, parts of which were real, and parts of which were fantasy.
The difficult fact of the third segment of this film is its failure to help the audience deem what is real and what is not up to the very last shot of the film. Is the officer Mike even real, or was he the hellion that kept talking to her, saying her name, asking if she could hear it? We see her cut her own belly open, after which I assumed she was repeatedly stabbing the fetus with the sickle, and suddenly, although we are led to believe she killed the fetus she is shown being taken into the pumpkin patch by the hellions again. Next, she's in a hospital room and wakes up to find her mother and brother there with her, which turns out to be "another?" horrific dream. She awakens, gets out of the hospital bed, walks down the hall, looks in the baby incubator room, and hears that voice.
I've seen the film Trick r Treat and I didn't find the plot to be similar at all, minus the hellions which remind one of the character Sam. As a matter of fact, in having seen Pontypool as well I believe this director garners inspiration from David Lynch. Alternate dimensions, duality, surreality are all over this film. And, as with most Lynch films, I have to watch this more than once or twice to gain a clearer assessment and put together pieces like a puzzle. For instance, did the doc even show up at her house in the first place, and was the cop Mike even real? Or was it really all a dream? Did she lose the baby, or is it one of those in the hospital? And if one of those is, how could it possibly be when she was only four weeks along?
Looking for answers to questions such as these doesn't necessarily make it a bad, unreasonably difficult to follow piece of cinematic trash...it may seem as such to many, but these many are, to put it kindly, not the sharpest blades in the knife set. I mean, if a film is difficult to understand, surreal, and leaves more questions than answers is said to automatically be bad and sloppy, then how do you explain the success of such directors as Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Tim Burton, Guillermo DelToro, Stanley Kubrick, and Oliver Stone? As a film maker myself, I find puzzling elements in a film to be a challenge and not as an excuse to be lazy and just deem it a bad film.
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zharth
7 years ago
"I mean, if a film is difficult to understand, surreal, and leaves more questions than answers is said to automatically be bad and sloppy, then how do you explain the success of such directors as Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Tim Burton, Guillermo DelToro, Stanley Kubrick, and Oliver Stone?"
I think Bruce McDonald needs to ask himself this question, as do all aspiring "surreal" filmmakers. Many of these directors are considered overrated by some - just to put that out there. Though I'm a fan of Lynch, I consider the confundity of his movies to be a critical flaw. Nevertheless, they still manage to work even when you don't understand them, because they don't appear to be trying to make sense, so much as trying to create feelings and atmosphere - which they do exceedingly well.
Obviously, much of this is up to subjective interpretation, but I didn't find that the "atmosphere" of this movie drew me in; as much of it - minus the womb cam and infrared filter - played out like a typical slasher/home invasion thriller (Lynch's movies work because you can't compare them to anything else, except your dreams). And, whether intentional or not, the whole baby angle feels like it's trying to send a message, leading the viewer to try to sort out what that is, when in the end it is, at best, unclear - resulting in confusion and frustration, and reflecting an ostensibly flawed product.
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