Just finished watching this on Hulu a few moments ago.
My first impressions, especially without reading other reviews: This is a really good, solid psychological horror. It's definitely slow in places, but the payoff is well worth it IMHO. While it may not break any conventions as far as the story itself goes, the characters were great, and the camera work was, at least, an interesting and cool departure from the normal.
That being said, this *does* get melodramatic in parts. The scene where the Main Character's best friend has a deep breakdown after having a normal conversation with her on the phone was a bit much. Huge, secret lesbian crush or not, it just seemed to come out of nowhere, complete with razor blade cutting. Very weird, but not having been a teen lesbian myself, maybe this will strike a cord with someone, I don't know.
Perhaps others who saw this movie saw the twist way before I did, but I also wasn't *looking* for a twist. It was neat, but nothing that hadn't been done before.
That being said, there were a few things that I doubt are true to reality. First, if a family knew it was descended from Lizzie Borden, I doubt they would have to look up information online about the Lizzie Borden house, especially given how big it is. I would also expect the descendants to be the ones running it, but what do I know? Maybe there are too many descendants by now, I haven't a clue. It would be one thing if they never knew....but they made it clear from the beginning that MC's fam DID know.
BTW, the security at the mental hospital must be abysmal for the MC's aunt to have kept getting out over and over again. I mean, just truly bad.
At the very end, when MC's little brother sees Lizzie herself in the back of the car, I was okay with it. Usually, I hate that kind of thing - demon/ghost/monster/etc. Isn't REALLY gone! But, since we're dealing with things like mental illness and possession inherited from family, and there was no real attempt to exorcise the demon or mental illness or whatever it was for EVERYONE, it makes logical sense that she/it/etc. Would move on to the next available member. What was doubly interesting was that, all through the movie, it's implied that this thing only manifests in the *female* members of the family. At the end of the movie, it makes it clear that it isn't, that that's a false assumption by the family members.
As for why the 'crazy' aunt was going to their house to begin with: I can only assume that it was to low-key stalk her sister who was the actual culprit of so much horror. As for why she reacted the way she did towards MC earlier in the movie, I assume it's either the illness, or the fact that she was locked up with other mentally ill people (which can make a sane person crazy), or both.
Or maybe she was lonely, I don't know. What's *really* mystifying is how she got to the house so fast, when it takes so long to drive there. That's the weirdest part. Oh well. Maybe by the time she got there, it was like 2 in the morning, who knows.
Anyroad, I really liked this. My only complaint is that the camera work got a little *too* artsy at times, so that it was somewhat difficult to tell what was going on. That, and right at the beginning of the trailer, it gives away a huge spoiler, which I wish these trailer companies would stop doing; it's very, very irritating for a suspenseful movie.
This IS a slow movie, though, so if you are more of an action and thriller and blood and gore fan, you're going to HATE this. If you like spooky slow-build psychological flicks, then this is right up your alley!
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