This is a new Kevin Cosner movie. That might sound like a big deal new, especially after SWING VOTE and MR BROOKS, but for me he's still an interesting filmmaker and when he picks projects that aren't so completely obviously idiotic, then they are worth at least watching. However, this is one you can skip.
** AVOID ***
The story: John James, recently divorced (played by Kevin Cosner) moves his two children to a small house in the country. The house is near a large burial mound. The oldest daughter (played by Ivana Baquero from PAN'S LABRYNTH) begins acting strangely -- going out at night and dressing sexy and getting into fights and holding a small straw doll. Then the kids babysitter disappears. James, hearing a legend about "Mound Walkers" who would mate with young girls, tries to bulldoze the mound, but they uncover the body of the babysitter. That night the Mound Walkers take his daughter to the mound and James has to race back and save her.
So is it good?
No.
*** SPOILERS *** I'm not even sure my synopsis made sense and I'm leaving out a ton of stuff that would confuse things even more. Basically the first half of the movie plays out like it's a supernatural mystery with the daughter being possessed or something. She starts acting differently, she starts dressing differently, she becomes violent. But then it isn't anything supernatural -- it's just these creatures that look like leftovers from THE DESCENT. There's so much stuff in here that just doesn't make sense. I could go on and on -- when James is driving back with the police they are attacked...why? Why hasn't anyone else in town heard of these creatures or known about them? There's a whole town full of young girls? Why was the girl acting possessed and dressing differently? Now maybe I'm missing something -- maybe these "Mound Walkers" are a common mythology thing and I've just never heard of them and if you know about them then you know all their powers and the lore and all this makes sense. But if you don't - then the movie is mess. There's no build up, there's no pay off, nothing makes sense.
*** AVOID ***
To watch instead: THE DESCENT -- another creature movie but much, much etter done. Four adventuring women reunite after a year apart following a tragic accident that killed one woman's husband and son, and go spelunking, but a cave-in traps them so they have to push further into the cave where they meet a strange, vicious subterranean creature... Good stuff!
It was an ok movie,nothing I would watch again!
ReplyDeleteI loved it. I expected the movie to be about a rebellious teenage daughter who gets involved with the wrong crowd, with some undertone of paranormal influence. I didn't expect the wrong crowd to be mole-mouthed humanoids from out of an effigy mound. I was pleasantly surprised. Costner's character is such a wimp, burying a perfectly good shotgun,brushing away spiders that should be smashed, and asking his daughter when he should be commanding her, that the ending comes as no surprise. At least he does have one shining moment when he goes out to the mound to rescue his daughter and do what we white people have unfortunately always done best: commit genocide on an indigenous culture we don't understand. Hey, who cares that they kill people and have a sphincter -like piehole full of needle teeth, they're people too, right!
ReplyDeleteWatching the movie now and i have to say it is hard to see Costner play a character so far from his usual alpha type roles
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