Tag: serial killers

Hell Is Other People Week: Hush (2016)

I would definitely recommend Hush if you’re looking for an intelligent (despite the few plot holes) thriller with some strong, likeable characters and performances.

October is Horror Movie month, where we let down our hair and celebrate all things macabre and scary! Not that we don’t during the rest of the year, but still… HORROR MOVIES! People who don’t like horror are encouraged to check back November 1st for less bloody and/or disturbing films. For everyone else, let’s put on our galoshes and WADE INTO THE MIRE!

Note: Due to exhaustion on the author’s part, today’s entry, which was actually supposed to be published last Friday, will be shorter than usual. Rather than wait and agonize over an ever-growing backlog, I’m finishing this entry and publishing it Monday. But don’t worry – I’ll be writing plenty of posts for Werebeast Week! 

Hello and welcome to Hell Is Other People* week here at Late to the Theater! This week’s selections are all about the biggest threat facing modern mankind –other people. All this week’s selections take place in Suburbia, and while they might feature supernatural flourishes, people tend to be the at the root of the problem. So throw some plastic flamingos on your lawn and turn up the music; we’re going to get a visit from the concerned people at our HOA**!

Today’s entry is 2016’s Hush, a horror thriller by the husband and wife team of Mike Flanagan and Katie Siegel. In the interest of discussion, it will contain spoilers! 

hush_2016_poster
Ooo, creepy dollface mask! 

The premise of Hush is simple: a woman has to survive a siege on her house from a sadistic killer. Maddie Young is a writer who’s moved to an isolated house in the woods to work on her second novel. She’s plugging right along when a crossbow-wielding lunatic shows up and traps her inside. It sounds formulaic and like nothing you haven’t already seen if you’ve been watching horror movies for the last twenty years, but there’s a fascinating twist, one that keeps the movie interesting despite the flimsy plot:

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Fannibals Unite! or: I Am What He Eats

GOSH.

For one thing, I am astounded at what they get away with on network tv. I’m not a big fan of splatter movies, gore doesn’t bother me, but the show is so visceral in its presentation of the violence. You rarely see violence on screen, but the bodies left behind–WHEW.

You might remember me mentioning in this post from approximately a hundred years ago that I am a huge fan of the Hannibal Lecter character. I still haven’t seen Hannibal Rising (probably won’t), but a friend kept telling me how much I needed to watch the tv show. It wasn’t on Instant, so I was a good little consumer and bought the first season on dvd.

GOSH. 

For one thing, I am astounded at what they get away with on network tv. I’m not a big fan of splatter movies, gore doesn’t bother me, but the show is so visceral in its presentation of the violence. You rarely see violence on screen, but the bodies left behind–WHEW.

If you aren’t already a fan of horror and aren’t very desensitized to it, you might strongly consider giving this one a miss. I mean the show is so compelling, but seriously – HORRIBLE THINGS. This makes Game of Thrones look like a Disney movie and I have NO idea how they do it!

It’s magnificent. It’s perfect. As a portrait of Hannibal Lecter it’s – well it’s not perfect, because the Hannibal of the book is a short, unassuming little man with piercing eyes with red highlights, nothing like towering specimen Mads Mikkelsen. But it works. The show is not trying to recapture the book’s character, and Mikkelsen makes the character his own anyway. He is playing Lecter as completely fallen, sort of pretending that Lecter is Lucifer and inherently evil rather than worrying about any of the psychology behind the character. And it works!

But that’s not what I’m talking about today.

So much has already been written about this show and these characters and scenes and symbology and Wendigos and food and plaid suits and so I don’t need to try and plaster my stickers on over everyone else’s. The fandom exists, and by all means go and explore it. I might! I have never written fanfiction before but I just might!

Instead, I give you a list of things that it is impossible (yet fun!) to imagine Hannibal doing. I don’t know why these things occurred to me, but I was amused at the mental images and thought  I’d share. Enjoy!  [I’ll avoid spoilers in case anyone is interested in pursuing the show!]

  • Realizing he needs to get his car washed, finding that his normal detailing people are out of town, and having to wash his car himself with cutoffs and a tshirt he got free from the bank. I picture him losing himself in the car care section of Advance Auto Parts pondering which scent to buy. Would he even OWN cutoffs? I mean he makes his own beer, does canning, and a lot of cooking, and I’m sure he does all the maintenance on his murder dungeon himself. I can’t see him sacrificing a good suit while doing all that. Maybe that’s what the killsuit was originally for.
  • Screwing up a recipe because he’s out of that ONE GODDAMN THING that sets the whole thing off and being SO GLAD he was eating alone that night. Quelle dommage! But he has a freezer full of goodies, so he’s all good.
  • Handing out Halloween candy. Can’t you that just see that long silhouette appearing in the orange doorway, beguiling scents of hot food drifting out around him? Would he say fuck it and get a grab bag of KitKats and whatnot, or would he present them with something a little more… savory? I feel like he’d do the latter, and like 99% of the kids would be like ‘ew!’ and overprotective moms would chuck it anyway since you’re not supposed to trust strangers…

    … but one kid would try. Oh yeah.

  • Stumbling across a reality show filmed in his city where everyone is horrible and rude and discourteous and he sort of smiles to himself and realizes that if he doesn’t slow down he’ll have to break out the sweatpants from all the people eating lately.

And because it’s about food, a subject I hold to be VERY precious, here is the amazing supercut that makes it look like an amazing cooking show. And yes, there are very identifiable people parts. Just rock with the music and pretend it’s veal!