Disappearance Review
So, my mother is visiting at the moment and we'd just woken up for the day and are talking on the couch.
The TV's on and it's on channel 79, (really, I didn't even know there was anything on those channels. TV is usually something I avoid.) now being the movie enthusiast she is, she's getting interested in what's currently playing. We both end up watching this pathetic attempt at horror, later more as a sense of finishing it than any real enjoyment. (Really, there are hardly any good horror movies. Or maybe I just require something of actual quality, logic and all.
So I tuned in when this white family, (yes, white family) are stopping at a ghost town and leave the car to investigate. They just invite themselves into a busted up house and start exploring like all horror movie characters are prone to do. The brother decides to just mosey into the back hall (an incredibly creepy back hall I'd have asked another person to explore along with me and visa-versa.) and comes upon a wall infected with Herpes.
But the STD wall is not creepy enough so the movie inserts the generic shock scene where his friend jumps out at him. One thing I will give to them is that the teenage boys actually look like teenage boys and the daughter is not dressed like a mini slut or barbie doll. They discuss the tribal signs on the wall and what they say looks like a skinned carcass. I repectfully disagree and throw my lot in with an STD as does Moms.
They do not tell anyone about this. It is apparently not of enough importance (batshittery) that they feel its prudent to bring up.
Moms predicts that the car will suddenly stop working and I agree. We're proven right a second later when the family can't start it. Apparently the baddy decides to pull out a wire. No one in the family is car literate. The step mom knows about them for her editorials but still can't figure out how to fix it.
So instead of staying in their car till daylight, like my family would, they stay in the dirty, broken down house.
Queue spook scenes!
The family finds a camera that's dirty and appears old and watch the tape on it. It's of a family that stops here, has car troubles, and stays in the house. Hmmm. The woman is later shown disheveled and crying, stating that they were being picked off, before looking off screen and freaking out. She runs away and the camera is sluggishly picked up and slowly put down.
So now we have an eerily similar situation with a precursor to what just might happen to these guys. What do they do? What the majority of horror movie characters do.
Dismiss it.
1. The camera must be old, (despite it still FUNCTIONING).
2. It must be a prank.
3. Coincidence? What coincidence?
This is why I'm rarely scared. Gore and violence don't frighten me. And forced stupidity from characters I'm supposed to be identifying with but can only balk at how fucking retarded they all are doesn't either. How can one possibly 'care' about these dumbasses?
Would YOU dismiss the similarities here? Would YOU hand-wave it as a prank? Would YOU stay?
I subscribe to Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. Or at the very least, competent.
If we cannot identify with these characters (and no, cliché character arcs don't count), then how can we begin to care? How can we experience their fear with them? It becomes a basic snuff film instead, watching idiots off themselves by splitting up for the hell of it.
So they decide to sleep. By this time, both I and Moms are talking about how we'd be taking sleeping shifts if in their situation. After all, one person keeping watch all night will only hinder them in the morning. The lucky lookout is the father. Now since this is 'horror', he will hear a noise, and he will investigate alone, without reaching for a weapon.
Scene ensues, and instead of him getting offed, he's called back downstairs by his rightfully terrified clan. Running off into the night without waking the people you should be guarding is just... What if Mearkats did this type of scout work instead of sounding the alarm? They'd all be dead.
He stands watch once more, and promptly falls asleep... Dead twice.
Switch to monster scene, where we're treated to a huffing guy with shaky-cam syndrome. He walks in, steals a pink sweater, and leaves.
The next morning, the family wakes up to find that their car is missing.
Now the baddy has a sweater and a car. Me and Moms both discuss how how the bad guy must be a kleptomaniac and should seek help and how the family should sue the sick bastard into the ground.
Naturally, everything's fine. Their car broke down and was then stolen, and they found a tape of people apparently being killed in a situation all too similar to their own. Problem? No problem here! The husband simply tells the others that the baddy just wanted the car!
Oh yes.
It just gets worse. The next town over is around 35 miles and much too long to walk with the whole family. No one's ever just used their legs for a trek that big! But despite the fact I would've taken my entire family with me (as would any sane goddamn person) he decides to split the group and hand his wife an antique pistol for protection. Gee, good thinking there!
So he's off with his son's friend, leaving his children and wife in the supposedly evil town with baddies. They encounter a snake and stare at it until it decides to bite one of them. And then they come across a bombing site. It's more interesting to read, than watch.
Now the step-mom, insists that the video is fake. Why? Because! People don't kill people, ever.
The brother and sister rightfully dismiss her as a complete moron (as well as a step-mom) and she decides to go take a piss away from them, along with the gun she was supposed to be using to protect the lot.
If this were my or your family, we'd be gone. There would be no 'horror' because the writers are not smart enough to create better situations for people with an iota of common sense.
So step-mom falls into a bottomless pit and doesn't break anything despite her incredibly awkward landing. She starts yelling and I turn to Moms, joking that she might as well tell the baddy 'I'm here!'...to which the woman promptly screams 'I'm here!'.
Fun times are had by all.
She climbs up a convenient ladder and comes across the stolen goods of the sticky-fingered baddy. THIS is what frightens her. Not the video, not the car, not the deserted town. No, this. Suddenly it's legit. She hears sounds coming from the various tunnels and starts yelling out again for help.
The kids view the video again, decide that everyone must be out of their minds, split up but reunite just as fast, and get a rope for their idiot step-mom. Up until this time, I'd thought that they were at least a little logical but the boy immediately squashes that line of thought by insisting he comes down the well instead of just pulling the woman up.
By this time, Moms has completely lost faith in life. We watch as he climbs down...and then immediately - immediately - climbs right back up, like a yo-yo. Giving the baddy ample time to masturbate and hobble closer to the two. Step-mom shows that she can actually shoot a gun and we cut to the others in the desert.
The family friend decides to climb up a hill with the dad right behind him, he then disappears. Like that, into the sand. Apparently the baddies have tunnels and random trap doors under so much sand in random places? Good thing he walked over that exact spot.
So the dad throws on his 'wtf' face and looks around, seeing the town over the hill and realizing that they'd been walking 5 hours in a circle. He also comes across a bunch of cars lined up in a pattern close by (funny how they missed that originally) and spots his own. So he runs down and grabs the battery for it, installing it and getting in while the baddy decides to summon a shitload of sand in his pre-masturbatory rage.
Dumbass races off to town, where his abandoned and alienated family are waiting, having just left the pit. They all jump in the car and he tells them that he lost the other kid. Just lost him, like a set of keys. Though in his defense, that is exactly what happened.
They drive to the other town, order some food and the dad goes to the police station to report the missing person. The officer tells him he's full of shit, there's no other town here! He says that they'll search the desert in the morning and is called away, giving time for the prisoner to add in more plot-hole bullshit.
Explanation? Mutants, Indians and/or aliens. Yep. The best advice he gives is telling this dumbass to get the fuck out of dodge.
The daughter who's the least stupid of the bunch goes to get their food and recognizes the clerk as the one from the video. Naturally, she runs back and tells everyone this because this opens up so many more questions and casts well-founded suspicion on the town.
They dismiss it.
The dad then gets everyone a room and leaves their recently stolen car unattended again. The daughter later in the night begs and reasons with him that they shouldn't stay the night there. That they can leave and come back in the morning to search for the boy. He reluctantly relents to her begging.
This man has to be coerced by an 11 year old to take a logical action.
I feel so sorry for this girl.
Well they drive out and are flagged down by the desperate officer who magically produces the kid when they tell him they're leaving. No one finds this suspicious.
The kid's explanation sounds parroted and he likely is concussed. Moms thinks he's possessed by the devil. I just want them all to die.
They drive off and complain about not being able to stay in town because the youngest of their group actually possesses a brain. At this time, the baddie decides to get run over by their car by standing on the straight as an arrow road, in plain site.
Baddy is apparently some type of tanker, because hitting him sends the truck flying (I mean really flying), and he's perfectly fine with this after, so I assume he must be the fucking hulk.
Six months later they're all healthy and working in the town, brainwashed.
fin
Satisfied? This is the new crux of horror, purposely leaving all explanations open under the guise of making viewers 'think' [LMFAO] instead of trying to write a logical conclusion. That paired with the completely retarded characters makes this barely watchable.
At least you'll get a laugh out of it.
IN MEMORY OF DAUGHTER, THE ONLY SEMI-SMART CHARACTER THEY WROTE.
