I really didn't know what to expect when I began watching this film over supper. I briefly read half of the NetFlix-provided description, absorbing only "the true story of the torture and..." and put it in. I figured that I had seen really dark movies before, and this would simply be another one.
I had no idea what I was in for. The plot begins with a father dropping off his 2 young girls to the care of a woman he had never known before, who has 7 children of her own, and agrees to pay her $20 a week. Slapping starts off the abuse pictured within this movie- and it simply spirals from there. At first the abusive foster mother appears to be equal-oppurtunity, but quickly she singles out one of her 2 foster children. The first time the girl is beaten, she has her own daughter do it, while her very young son holds her down.
What is so spooky about this movie is just that- the woman is not doing alot of the abusing- she's simply instructing others to do it. All of them give her second looks, but when yelled at, simply follow orders. This seems to climax in a scene when the mother forces the young girl to put a coke bottle in her vagina- while all the children watch. 2 older children come into the home, and demand to know what's going on. Instead of the situation diffusing, the girl gets thrown down the stairs and locked in the basement. The mother tells everyone that she was sent to "juvi". Meanwhile, she appears to make moves on a young boy who has a crush on the missing young girl.
The kids in the neighborhood gradually learn that the girl is locked in the basement, and at the prompting of some of the woman's own children(in particular the youngest boy), they all begin torturing her. It starts with cigarette burns, and then anything you can imagine. This is where the movie started making my heart beat out of my chest, and my arms shake. The first time a neighborhood kid(unrelated to the situation) hits her, it took me by amazing surprise.
The situation(which is a completely true story) is clearly illustrating that people will do what they're told, or what the group is doing, as well as the possible sadism inherent in all people. While those are good subjects to touch on(they usually use nazi germany as the example)- it's fucking creepy to actually see it, undecorated.
2 false salvations for the tortured girl occur, and they both are truly cruel to the viewer. One is when a social worker visits the home, asking to see the girl. The woman simply tells him that she "was sent to juvi", while she acts very faint. He simply says he "wants to see her in his office" and leaves! The entire movie up to this point, is the viewer waiting for this horrible situation to be discovered. Right afterwards, as if that wasn't bad enough, the woman writes "I'm a prostitute and proud of it" on the girls stomach, while neighborhood kids watch. She then forces the children to heat up a needle. She brands the first 1 or 2 lines into her stomach, while children watch, and then passes the needle to the boy who has a crush on her. He says "I can't do it", she says "please", but then goes up the stairs. At this point, I assumed that the boy and the children wouldn't continue, knowing that the woman wasn't in the room anymore, and that is was crazy. Instead, the boy does it.
It was actually hard to continue watching after that. This is the only time I've felt that way. When the boy brands the girl's stomach, he looks concerned- which makes it even worse. He looks like "what the hell am I doing?", but he does it anyway. At this point, I figure that has to be the climax of the abuse. I think I am proved correct, as the girls sister rescues her, and puts her in the custody of the boy who has a crush on her. He apologizes, and drives her to her real parents. Her parents go back to the womans house, with their daughter in the car. The daughter says "I have to do this" and walks in alone! At this point, I knew that something was terribly wrong, as her parents weren't going in with her and hadn't called the police.
At this point, the girl walks in on a scene of her own corpse being prompted by the other children to "come on, breath!", as the woman just passively insists "she's fakin...she's fakin". I knew at this point this was the end, and the "rescue" by her sister was all a dream. Not only is it the first dream or hallucination in the movie- so it can't be anticipated, but it's the second time you think the girl will escape with her life. She doesn't.
The ending is simply the last testimony from those involved- involving the children telling the court "I was just doing what I was told" or "I don't know" when asked why they tortured her, and the woman denying what happened. Then she is sentenced to life in prison. The tortured girl narrates at the end from beyond the grave, seemingly apologetic for the abusive woman- which drives me nuts because not only is it a complete conjecture of the girls actual opinion(because she's dead), but because they also mention afterwards that the woman "took responsibility" for the events much later in life, as if that was good enough. The little girl says she herself "went back the the carnival, where I always felt safe" which pisses me off even further, because she didn't. She just died and that was it, and this ending insinuates some kind of heaven eternity.
The movie saves itself slightly in my eyes by the little girls narration saying something like "Pastor ____ always said god has a plan in everything, but I can't see the plan in this"... clearly commenting on the absurdity and purposelessness of abuse and circumstance. They mention that most of the kids who tortured her got at least a couple years in jail- but that the mother got out on her life sentence(from 65) in 1985 on parole and died in 1990.
This movie was painful to watch, and had an incredibly frustrating end. From about the last half on, you really couldn't tell if there was going to be a happy ending. First the viewer roots for the girl being saved, then for the kids to stop the torture, then for the abusive woman to die or get locked up forever. None of those things end up happening. Though this is a true story, so they couldn't invent a happy ending, this is the only time I wish with all my heart that there had been one. Ultimately, I'm shocked (I was physically shooken up for about 45 minutes afterward). I have no problem with portraying human darkness in a movie if neccesary, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this darkness has absolutely no point.\
P.S. WTF?
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2 comments:
c.f. the lucifer effect--written by the only psychologist worth reading (phil zimbardo). one of the author's main points is that most everyone has the capacity for situational evil. like: when no one's watching and you feel like you can get away with anything, that's when the real human spirit comes out--and man is revealed to be a relatively spiteful creature.
i think i'm going to try to watch this movie b.c. it sounds like it turns the "this is really fucked up" dial up to 11.
firstly, zimbardo is a beast, I agree with his ideas of pragmatically applying psychology. reading some of his stuff cheered me up a bit.
secondly, I may have underplayed just how turbulent this movie made my emotions. it's completely fucked up(but it's true, so no fault of those involved)
thirdly, another interesting point is the "bystander effect". in situations like this where we find ourselves asking "why didn't anyone do anything?", it's because in a group situation like that, everyone assumes someone else will step up instead of them- so no one does.
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