After Paola is matched with a handsome online suitor, she arrives for a first date to discover a house full of dark and terrifying secrets.
“Some movies are bad, some movies are meh okay, and some movies are good. This was a good movie.” (an approximation of what Remy said) So I got a fucking Tubi account and just, uh, watched it. I intended to watch while doing shit on the comp but I got sucked in, so. Well.
Firstly: I was told there were some twists. Not the twists I expected. I have to commend Lucille’s crazy eye game, too. She really fucking made a fantastic villain. She disgusts me and I can’t fathom her motivations— how does she think Henry will take care of a grandchild after she passes? She’s absolutely bonkers and weird and strange.
Overall, the writing doesn’t really make sense until it does, and then it doesn’t again. It’s a fun movie, I really did enjoy it, I mean, I got sucked in after all!
But now that I’m sitting here thinking about it, this really didn’t make a measure of sense that I can comprehend.
Motivations:
Paola: 1. get a date; 2. survive; 3. survive with eli; 4. survive with eli and her sister
Maria: 1. find her sister; 2. get her sister out alive
Henry: 1. Listen to Mommy; 2. Make Mommy stop???
Lucille (Mom): 1. Get Henry to fuck a baby into some poor girl 2. ??? 3. Grandchild before she dies
Eli: 1. survive? 2. i guess??????
Ryan: 1. get Paola Back alive
Natalie: 1. get a date 2. get good tea. she also says this:
“I didn’t whack a mole for nothing. Now I’m gonna dine out on this tale for years. Now let’s go find your sister.”
Yo. Best way to get a random ass bitch involved in this shit.
Somewhere in there we threw in a few extra characters to up the body count— both on screen long enough for their side-character comic energy to permeate us long enough for us to like them and be a tiny bit upset when they died (especially poor Natalie, who spent her time in the house being verbally accosted by Lucille before getting her revenge via “whack a mole”).
And somewhere in there we got Eli, who was seeded in the beginning, somehow knowing the layout of the house… also likely sexually abused by Lucille, because she 1) knows he is “impotent” (likely because she tried to touch him like she touches Henry) and 2) she acts like she has a right to the bodies of her sons like that. And then the twist of him surprise! Being her son! Which, uh, okay? This lady would have caught fire on Estranged Mom TikTok if she hadn’t first cut off her kid’s feet and imprisoned him in a tiny room with a chain around his waist.
Lucille’s motivations are supposed to mirror the care of a parent in Papa, Paola and Maria’s father who is both blind and an amputee and has gone through whatever the hell HE went through (a prior horror movie, perhaps?) (or just some real health complications, you know, normal stuff that doesn’t involve this sort of thing). Lucille wants grandkids, Papa wants grandkids. Papa gently prods his hetero daughter for a grandbaby but puts the needs of his daughters first, working as Lucille’s foil. Lucille is perfectly ambulatory but she’s dying of blood in the handkerchief cough cough disease, so she is BEGGING Henry to shack it up with a girl to the point where she catfishes girls for him and demands he rape them. She won’t stop grabbing his dick, won’t stop yelling and beating at him, berating him while also sweet-talking him, aiming to get what she wants out of the relationship more than what Henry wants.
What she wants ultimately ends up in Henry losing his shit on her and letting Paola go, for reasons I can’t really understand, and literally everyone but Henry and Paola die. The movie has a double closer that doesn’t really wrap up the movie— one, where Papa asks for Maria and Paola is unable to answer because Maria sacrificed her life for Paola (tragic lesbian death confirmed) and then a second ending where Paola is deleting her dating apps and fucking pauses when she gets a match like bitch, just delete it, your sister just died over this nonsense.
I wish there was a little more. I mean, Maria had a girlfriend and frozen eggs ready to go. Paola is needing to grieve a bit. An investigation needs to be done on the house… well, a whole list of shit. Even without any of the wrap-up agenda, baiting Paola with another match is just cold ass bitch energy. Just delete, Paola.
There are two whole dicks in this movie. One gets fantastically trapped in a mouse trap and one is in a random dick pic. I found it really funny that for once we get dicks and not tits in a movie. Applause all around.
Is it a statement against rape culture? Is it a statement against phone culture? Is it a statement against the distance we place between ourselves using the internet as a medium and how easy it is to lie about who we are and what we want, and how easy it is to be lied to about the genuine nature about people?
Or is it just a nice frame for a bit of a torture flick? (shrug)
