Reviewed on 28-DEC-25
I regret not dragging my and other nearby butts to the theatre for this; it’s definitely a weird one and I would’ve benefited from a communal screening. It had me squirming (and also LOL’ing) like I did in Barbarian, and once again, it’s a reminder that all the evil we’ve ever experienced or even made up is still somehow a part of our shared humanity. That sucks, but we still try to explain it away with fairy tales or attempt to distance ourselves from our neighbours. My initial feeling was must be telegraphing the lack of reflection and societal change on school shootings into this original yarn. Maybe? America can’t seem to (or at least hasn’t) confronted school shootings with real, measurable change, so maybe this is just an accidental byproduct, but it’s often to tough to sit with the horrors committed against children (Alex was a tough watch if you weren’t distracted thinking about “Bean Dad”). I don’t really know what’s up with all of this, but it drags and stitches people into a mysterious shared mess, and makes space for us to blame each other for our own undoing. A suburban puppet show with uncredited or unaccountable puppet masters. At the end of the day, it unlocked a few new fears. This cinematic soup could have been called Batteries, but I suppose that doesn’t tap into the weaponization of horror. Sweet dreams! 🔺
I regret not dragging my and other nearby butts to the theatre for this; it’s definitely a weird one and I would’ve benefited from a communal screening. It had me squirming (and also LOL’ing) like I did in Barbarian, and once again, it’s a reminder that all the evil we’ve ever experienced or even made up is still somehow a part of our shared humanity. That sucks, but we still try to explain it away with fairy tales or attempt to distance ourselves from our neighbours. My initial feeling was must be telegraphing the lack of reflection and societal change on school shootings into this original yarn. Maybe? America can’t seem to (or at least hasn’t) confronted school shootings with real, measurable change, so maybe this is just an accidental byproduct, but it’s often to tough to sit with the horrors committed against children (Alex was a tough watch if you weren’t distracted thinking about “Bean Dad”). I don’t really know what’s up with all of this, but it drags and stitches people into a mysterious shared mess, and makes space for us to blame each other for our own undoing. A suburban puppet show with uncredited or unaccountable puppet masters. At the end of the day, it unlocked a few new fears. This cinematic soup could have been called Batteries, but I suppose that doesn’t tap into the weaponization of horror. Sweet dreams! 🔺