This is one of those weeks when I will be giving a little more than the suggested ten answers.
What surprised me while doing research for this post was how common it is for many movies and tv shows that weren’t originally based on books to eventually have stories published about them anyway.
I wonder if there has ever been or will ever be a film based on a book that was originally based on another film?
At any rate, here are some films that would make great books. So far as the Internet tells me, no books have been written about any of them yet.
1. Us
2. Good Will Hunting
3. Inception
4. The Cabin in the Woods
5. Beetlejuice
6. Edward Scissorhands
7. Nope!
8. Europa Report
9. Labyrinth
10. Get Out
11. The Sixth Sense
I look forward to reading everyone else’s responses.
Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.
Winters here in Ontario have been milder than usual these past few years. When we do get cold, stormy weather, here are some of the things I like to do to amuse myself during them:
Read
This one is pretty obvious, and I’m betting most of you are going to mention it, too.
Play in the Snow for About 20 Minutes.
I love being an outdoorsy person when the weather is mild, but not so much when it’s painfully cold or hot outside. So about 20 minutes of building a snowman or walking around to admire the beauty of winter is my idea of a good time before I go back indoors to warm up.
Watch Movies
I think that psychological horror films are a great match for snowy winter days when it’s far too blustery to be outdoors if you don’t have to be.
There’s something delicious about getting scared silly while the wind beats against your window. It’s so easy to imagine there might really be a monster lurking out there just beyond the blur of the storm, after all!
If I’m watching movies with someone who doesn’t like anything scary at all, other genres like historical, documentaries, or comedies can work perfectly nicely, too. Just don’t ask me to watch anything involving people being cold.
Hypothermia isn’t something I like to think about when the weather outside is frightful. Let’s find something lighthearted, educational, or thought provoking instead.
Cook or Bake Food
I prefer making warm, hearty things like soup, stew, chili, roasted vegetables, banana bread, or chocolate chip cookies during winter storms. There’s nothing like slowly noticing your home filling up with delicious scents on a stormy day.
Dance
Am I a good dancer? Heh, not really, but I love learning new dance routines through the magic of the Internet. You don’t have to be good at something in order to enjoy it, after all.
This is a nice way to get some exercise in when you’re stuck indoors all day, and it’s a great way to pass the time as well if you see the snow piling up outdoors and start feeling restless.
I’ll dance to all sorts of types of music, but I find that hip-hop, Bollywood, and Zumba-style dances tend to get my heart pumping the best.
So if I’m dancing as my exercise routine for the day, I tend to start with those styles because I have specific goals about reaching certain heartbeat rates that I try to meet for my cardio workouts.
If it’s just for fun, anything will do. Every sort of dance is a good sort in my book!
Play Board Games, Card Games, or Do Jigsaw Puzzles
There are some games I try to save for days when the weather is bad or when I have a cold and need something quiet to do as I recover.
Bodies need exercise, and so does your mind! I’m perfectly happy to play games of luck that don’t require any thinking, too, but I also enjoy the challenge of solving a puzzle or figuring out who killed Professor Plum in the conservatory and what weapon they used as well.
Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.
If you like eating snacks while watching movies, go put your favourite snacks on your shopping list.
I generally don’t eat while watching films, but I might be tempted by this cola and popcorn!
I need lighthearted stories when I’m trying to get my brain to stop rehashing whatever happened earlier, so you won’t find anything serious or scary on today’s list.
Here are five films I’d rewatch when I’m having a bad day.
Definitely, Maybe (2008)
What It’s About: A father telling his ten-year-old daughter a story about the three women he dated 11+ years before while she tries to guess which woman he described was her mother. Sometimes he must make humorous detours to avoid sharing inappropriate details of his dating life with his kid. There are a few light mystery elements, but this is mostly about their warm father-daughter relationship and what the dad wishes he’d done differently in life.
Why I Recommend It: The storyline is sweet and funny. I liked seeing what happens to characters after they broke up and how they successfully coparented their child. You don’t see amicable breakups often in this genre, but it was handled gently and with a lot of humour. This otherwise followed most romantic comedy tropes, so that predictability was helpful as well.
Just Wright (2010)
What It’s About: A no-nonsense physical therapist who is hired to help a basketball player recover from a career-threatening injury.
Why I Recommend It: I loved how opposite the two main characters were when we first meet them. I can’t say much about their personalities without giving away spoilers, but it made discovering the similarities between them more interesting in the later scenes. This more or less followed the typical plot for a romance which another reason why I liked it. Sometimes it’s nice to just relax and watch a storyline unfold without needing to solve any mysteries or trying to guess in advance how it will end.
By https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2283362/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54174459
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
What It’s About: Four teenagers who are accidentally sucked into a video game, become the characters in it, and must find a way to win the game before they run out of lives and get stuck there forever.
Why I Recommend It: The characters are ridiculous and delightful. I loved the way the storyline poked fun (in a friendly way) at all sorts of video game tropes. This does not require any sort of analysis. It simply exists to entertain, and there’s something to be said for that some days!
Coco (2017)
What It’s About: A 12-year-old boy named Miguel who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead and must find his way home again before morning.
Why I Recommend It: Miguel was such a sweet, kind, and brave kid. I also loved the subplots of this film that were related to Dia de los Muertos and Miguel’s relationships with various family members. There are a few minor mysteries to be solved if you want to, but it’s also completely possible to ignore the clues, focus on the main storyline, and still have a wonderful time.
Honestly, I highly recommend Pixar films in general. All of the ones I’ve seen so far have been well-written, creative, funny, and otherwise excellent distractions from a bad day whether you’re five years old or many decades older than that. They’re somehow written for people from every age group simultaneously which is quite the accomplishment.
Spirited (2022)
What It’s About: A modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This time, the selfish rich protagonist is someone who is aware of A Christmas Carol and has zero interest in listening to the spirits of past, present, and future or changing his ways.
Why I Recommend It: It was wickedly funny and an amazing homage to the original. I loved seeing how everything was updated for our era where everyone has a smartphone and does not take kindly to paranormal strangers breaking into their apartments in the middle of the night.
Content warning: vomiting and references to the death of a parent. I will not be discussing these things in my review.
Abominable is a 2019 American animated children’s fantasy film about three teenagers who travel from Shanghai to Mount Everest in the Himalayan mountains to return a kidnapped Yeti they nicknamed Everest to his home.
They must accomplish this while avoiding the wealthy businessman who wants Everest back and the zoologist he hired to track down this rare and valuble creature.
Characters
Chloe Bennet as Yi
Yi was a violin-playing teenager who lived with her mother and grandmother. Their family could afford the basics in life but had to budget carefully for anything beyond their simple lifestyle.
The cool thing about Yi was that she was always looking for a way to pay for her own treats. She wasn’t afraid of hard work if it would get her access to things that her family couldn’t otherwise afford.
Albert Tsai as Peng
Peng was a friend of Yi’s and Jin’s cousin. He was a playful, fun-loving teen who sometimes had trouble thinking through the probably consequences of his actions before trying something new.
Tenzing Norgay Trainor as Jin
Jin was a friend of Yi’s and Peng’s cousin. He’d always lived in a very financially stable home and sometimes had difficulty understanding why other folks were cautious with their possessions and money.
Joseph Izzo as Everest
Everest was the the young, impulse, friendly Yeti at the heart of all of this conflict and adventure.
Eddie Izzard as Burnish
Burnish was a wealthy man and head of Burnish Industries. He wanted to have a pet Yeti all to himself.
Sarah Paulson as Dr. Zara
Dr. Zara was a zoologist working with Burnish to capture a Yeti for him. She was an intelligent and resourceful woman who looked for every opportunity to get what her client wanted.
My Review
What an adventure this story was!
Yi was such a memorable main character. She had a sweet but sometimes stubborn personality that shone through no matter what combination of emotions she was currently experiencing. I thought the screenwriters did an excellent job of capturing the ups and downs of being a teenager, especially one that had already been through as much adversity as she had.
I enjoyed Pen’s innocent approach to the things he and his friends experienced. He seemed young for his age in the sense that I wondered if his parents were much more protective than the parents of his friends.
It took me a while to warm up to Jin because of how different our childhood experiences were as far as knowing the cost of common items and our expectations surrounding the shopping process go. I couldn’t imagine shrugging off some of the financial stuff he did, but his maturation in this area went a long way in endearing me to him. Some kids genuinely do grow up in families that buy them anything they want. I envied those kids a little when we were peers, but this film did a great job of showing the eventual downside of that sort of lifestyle.
The storytelling itself was marvellous. I loved the way all three main (human) characters reacted to Everest and how compassionate they were when they realized he needed to be protected and brought back home. There were so many heartwarming moments between all four of them.
The Yetis in this film were quite different from the ones I reviewed in Smallfoot earlier this month. I’d better not go into detail here, but I would recommend taking the time to compare and contrast them to anyone who watches both of these films.
Abominable Snowmen are fascinating creatures in general, and I’m glad to see them getting more attention in the media. Every reinterpretation of what they might be like if they were real creatures only pushes them into the limelight once again, and I like that.
This tale was filled with adventure from beginning to end. I had such a good time following along on the main characters’ trip to the Himalayan Mountains. The only piece of constructive criticism I can give to it is that I wish it had spent more time showing what Yeti society was like in general. Smallfoot did a great job of showing Yetis at many different ages and stages of life.
Everest was a very young Yeti, and there weren’t too many examples of other members of his species. So there were a few times when I wasn’t sure if his behaviour was due to his species or the fact that he was probably the equivalent of a preschooler or young child as far as his development went.
With that being said, this is a minor criticism. The rest of this film was well written and entertaining. I am planning to rewatch it and hope anyone else who gives it a shot enjoys it just as much as I did.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is a 1973 animated Thanksgiving film about Charlie Brown, the famous animated character from the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, throwing an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner for all of his friends.
The other films in this holiday trilogy in it include A Charlie Brown Christmas from 1965 and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown from 1966.
They all work as standalone stories. There is no need to watch them in a specific order.
I decided to review A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving because it’s the least well known part of this trilogy. It wasn’t something I was aware of growing up even though I knew about and liked the other films.
This review won’t contain a list of characters for spoiler reasons. The run time was only 25 minutes for this film, so I don’t have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to discussing the plot without giving away what happens in it.
My Review
The premise was one of the other reasons why I wanted to review this film. I can’t imagine throwing together a Thanksgiving dinner on the same day I discovered such a thing was expected of me. Ugh!
Charlie Brown (who is pictured in the film poster above) didn’t even have the advantage of knowing how to roast a turkey or make all of the traditional side dishes for this holiday. He was a child who was just beginning to learn to make simple dishes like toast and popcorn, so his predicament was even worse than I originally assumed it would be.
I was intrigued by what a Thanksgiving dinner cooked by a kid his age would be like and if he’d figure out how to get everything warm and on the table at the same time. Seeing what that process was like for him was a great deal of fun.
One of the other unexpected twists in this film had to do with what happens when Thanksgiving doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would. That message is just as relevant now as it was nearly fifty years ago. Honestly, it’s even more relevant now in some ways than it was when it first came out!
I loved the way the filmmakers approached the concept of feeling disappointment about the holiday festivities you’d planned and how to handle that emotion.
There are so many more things I want to say about the expectation of having a “perfect” Thanksgiving…but they’ll quickly wander into spoiler territory if I’m not careful.
It was also interesting to note how the culture of Thanksgiving has evolved since 1973. The ways the characters talked about the first Thanksgiving and this holiday in general weren’t exactly the same as they’re often discussed these days, although they did remind me of how these topics were handled when I was a kid.
I wonder what kids today would think of this tale?
Do note that the preview I included below for this short film is an original one from 1973 and does include some spoilers.
Content warning: Blood, violence, the death of a child, mental illness, and trauma. I will be mentioning these topics in my review.
The Cured is a 2017 Irish horror drama about former zombies being reintegrated into society after being cured of their disease.
While there are some violent scenes in it, this film is much more about how society stitches itself back together after a pandemic has ripped everything apart.
In short, this wasn’t about watching characters get hurt. It was about how everyone dealt with the traumatic aftermath of this sort of event several years after order was restored and everyone went back to work and school.
I’ve never seen a zombie film focus on this part of that story arc before. It was so unique that I had to watch this despite rarely being into zombies or post-apocalyptic fiction these days.
The character list is quite small this time because the vast majority of the scenes centred on this one family and how they coped.
Characters
Sam Keeley (right) as Senan Browne
Senan Browne was a former zombie who was cured. He was deeply traumatized by his experiences and struggled to find any sense of normality even after he was deemed to no longer be a threat to society.
After his release from the treatment centre, he was sent to live with his sister-in-law, Abbie, and young nephew, Cillian, who can be partially seen in Senan’s arms in the above photo.
Senan’s social worker assigned him to work as a porter at the same treatment centre that cured him. He was such a quiet, withdrawn man that I really wondered how he’d respond to this work environment.
Ellen Page as Abbie (Abigail) Reynolds
Abbie was Senan’s sister-in-law. Cillian is her son. Her husband, Luke, died early on in the zombie outbreak, so she raised her son alone in a violent and unpredictable environment.
She was just as traumatized as her brother-in-law, but she expressed it in completely different ways. Abbie was hyper-aware of everything going on around her and insisted on always knowing where her loved ones were for obvious reasons.
My Review
This is one of those rare zombie films that I’d wholeheartedly recommend to people who hate that genre. The zombies could easily have been substituted for real-world issues like pandemics or war and come to almost the same conclusion. It was the characters’ reactions to them that pushed the plot forward in the vast majority of cases.
Actually living through a zombie attack would be traumatizing for anyone, and the plot did an excellent job of showing how the two main characters reacted both in the moment and several years later when they were safe and together again. Both of them showed clear signs of mental illness as a result of these experiences, including flashbacks, panic attacks, guilt, rage, anxiety, mood swings, serious trouble focusing, and avoidance of things that reminded them of those terrible days. All of these scenes were handled sensitively.
Senan’s experiences had been unique ones. Without giving too much information away, life for people in his position was extremely difficult. Not only did he have to deal with prejudice and mistreatment from people who’d survived the initial outbreak without being turned, he also had to come to terms with what he’d done while he was a zombie. The social commentary on how we treat people whose choices have disgusted and terrified us was filled with food for thought. It almost reminded me of how some folks responded to people who had AIDS in the 1980s or to people who abuse drugs in the present day.
It would have been nice to see more time spent on the backstories of Abbie and of the doctor who cured Senan. Both of these women gave small hints about their experiences during the zombiepocalypse, but there was so much more room there for development. Yes, Senan had a unique tale to tell, but so did a woman who kept her baby alive for four years as a single parent in such a harrowing environment as well as a doctor who bravely treated and eventually cured many of the zombies while paying a terrible price for her courage.
I liked the way this film explored how Senan’s life had been forever altered by their pasts. Finally having a cure is by no means the same as an outbreak never occurring at all. While he had found a new sense of normalcy, he’d never be able to forget the events that set his story into motion in the first place.
I’d recommend The Cured to anyone who likes dramas.
(If you decide to watch the trailer below before watching this film, do keep in mind that it gives away some big plot twists. Someday I should write a post about why trailers shouldn’t do that!)
Content warning: mental illness, blood, violence, and trauma.
Us is a 2019 American horror film about a family who was terrorized by their doppelgängers while they were on what was supposed to be a peaceful beach vacation.
It was directed by Jordan Peele, the same director who released Get Out in 2017.
This is one of those films that works best in my opinion if you know as little about the storyline in advance as possible.
For this reason, my review is going to skirt the fine line between avoiding all spoilers and still managing to discuss the important social messages in this story.
Save this post to read after you’ve finished watching Us if you’re the sort of viewer who wants to know nothing at all about it in advance.
For everyone else, this will be a 99% spoiler-free review.
Characters
Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson (née Thomas)
Adelaide had never fully recovered from a traumatic childhood experience she had at the same beach her family now wants to visit on their vacation. Her hyper-vigilance and flashbacks were now threatening to derail the cheerful trip her husband and kids had been looking forward to for so long.
She was an intelligent, dedicated person who always thought through every possible scenario before making a decision.
Winston Duke as Gabriel “Gabe” Wilson
Gabriel was Adelaide’s fun-loving husband. He had a trusting, kind personality and usually looked for the best interpretation of possibly unsettling events.
Shahadi Wright Joseph as Zora Wilson
Zora was Adelaide and Gabriel’s exasperated teenage daughter. She was just a little too old now to still fully enjoy family vacations, especially when they involved a cottage that didn’t have Internet access.
Her hobbies included jogging and googling everything before she believed it.
Evan Alex as Jason Wilson
Jason was Adelaide and Gabriel’s son. He was approximately ten years old and still thought family beach vacations were the highlight of the summer.
His hobbies included practicing magic tricks and pushing the limits on which words his parents would add to their list of forbidden swear words if he said them with the right intonation.
Elisabeth Moss as Kitty Tyler
Kitty was Adelaide’s saucy childhood friend who always spoke her mind. Her hobbies included finding the humour in everything and dreaming of what her life would have been like if she’d waited until she was older to become a mother.
Tim Heidecker as Josh Tyler
Josh was Kitty’s husband. Finding the right drink for every occasion was his favourite hobby. I understood him as someone who genuinely enjoyed alcohol but who did not have an unhealthy dependency on it. He simply loved the challenge of matching drinks to people’s moods and current activities.
My Review
Some of the films I’ve reviewed in the past can be watched while doing other things that briefly take your attention away from the screen. The first clue about what was really happening here technically popped up before the first scene even started, so I strongly recommend giving this your full attention from beginning to end. In other words, grab your snacks and mute your cellphone ahead of time!
One of my favourite type of horror is anything that comes embedded with a social message. The preview for this film makes it look like a slasher flick. While there were certainly elements of that horror genre, there was a lot of thought-provoking material that couldn’t be included in that clip for spoiler reasons.
I find it difficult to say much about what that social message was or why it was so thought-provoking because of how late in the storyline it was fully revealed. What I can say is that it is a good idea to have a basic grasp of U.S. history before watching Us if you’re not already familiar with it. Don’t worry about memorizing dates or names or anything like that. Just get a feel for how that country was founded and how it’s developed over the past few hundred years.
This was the sort of story that can be interpreted in multiple ways. There are at least four of them, and maybe more than that depending on which viewers are polled. Don’t worry, I won’t be listing those theories here. What I will say is that the plot gives varying levels of evidence for all of them and I personally suspect more than one of them is right. (Maybe all of them are right!)
The doppelgängers were simultaneously frightening and fascinating. Yes, there were logical reasons given for their existences. Somehow figuring out what those reasons were only made them scarier to me. I really liked the way they quickly evolved from generic bad guys into something much more than that.
There was one subplot that I wish had been given more attention and development. It involved the inclusion of rabbits of all things. I still haven’t been able to figure out why that particular animal was added to such a dark storyline. It’s a minor criticism of something I really enjoyed, but I do wish they’d either been cut out of the plot altogether or, even better, given more opportunities to get tied in with everything else.
The characters occasionally pivoted from terrifying experiences to brief moments of humour. That was a pleasant surprise, and it was one of the many reasons why I enjoyed Us so much.
So long as none of the content warnings involve things that you personally avoid watching, I recommend Us to all adult viewers.
Content warning: deaths of children. I will be discussing this in my review.
The Curse of La Llorona is an American 2019 supernatural horror film set in 1973 about a mother who tries to save her children from a malevolent spirit who is trying to keep them for herself.
La Llorona, or The Weeping Woman, is a famous spirit in Mexican and Latin American folklore.
She was a spurned wife who got revenge on her philandering husband by drowning their two young sons. After she died, she was refused entry to heaven because of this act.
I will make no comment about the rest of her story or any similarities or differences between it and this film. Feel free to read more about the legend of La Llorona ahead of time or start watching this with no additional knowledge of her tale at all. The plot works nicely either way.
The Curse of la Llorona is also part of The Conjuring universe, but it is a standalone tale in that series.
Characters
Linda Cardellini as Anna Tate-Garcia
Anna was a young widow who was raising two children as a single parent. A social worker by trade, she was well-versed in normal child development and how children react to frightening experiences.
Roman Christou as Chris Garcia
Chris was Anna’s imaginative and impressionable son. He loved pretending to chase away bad guys.
Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen as Samantha Garcia
Samantha was Anna’s independent daughter. She loved dolls.
Patricia Velásquez as Patricia Alvarez
Patricia was the mother of two of the children Anna had on her caseload. When Patricia was accused of abusing her children, Anna attempted to figure out what had really happened.
Raymond Cruz as Rafael Olvera
Rafael, a former member of the clergy, was the person Anna turned to for help when all of her other attempts to figure out what really happened to Patricia’s children and why her own children were in danger had failed.
Marisol Ramirez as La Llorona
La Llorona was the spirit who had killed her own children in a fit of rage.
Her identifying features are obscured for spoiler reasons.
Sean Patrick Thomas as Detective Cooper
Detective Cooper was a police officer who sometimes worked on cases with Anna. He had also struck up a friendship with her and her children over the years.
Tony Amendola as Father Perez
Father Perez was a local priest who had experience with La Llorona.
My Review
I had mixed feelings about this film.
The foreshadowing was strong and easy to spot. If not for the grim subject matter, this is something I’d play for young film buffs who wanted to learn how to pick out clues about future plot twists early on in a storyline. There were plenty of examples of this scattered throughout the early scenes.
Obviously, La Llorona’s story must involve the deaths of children given the legend that inspired this film. The backstory of why La Llorona began killing other people’s children after she died was shared with the audience clearly. I’m being a little opaque on the topic for spoiler reasons, but know that much of it was implied instead of outright shown. Honestly, murdered children is a grim enough topic that I’m glad the filmmakers stopped where they did.
I wasn’t a big fan of the way the plot ignored previous character development and rules that had been set up earlier on about how this haunting worked. For example, one of the minor characters developed a grudge against someone else in the storyline. This conflict built up for a large part of the storytelling process only to be suddenly abandoned for reasons that were never explained. It lead to plot holes that I found unhelpful.
There was also contradictory information about what the living could and couldn’t do when interacting with La Llorona. Sometimes she was written as a spirit so consumed by rage and regret that every shred of rational thought had been torn out of her centuries ago. In other scenes, she behaved in ways that directly contradicted that character development. Either interpretation of her could have worked, but it was confusing for me as a viewer to never know which Llorona we were going to get.
With that being said, this was a wonderfully scary and atmospheric tale. There was never any doubt in my mind that La Llorona was a malevolent spirit. Her intentions were straightforward and easy to understand even if her cognitive abilities were not. This was refreshing, especially in a genre that sometimes veers too far in the direction of romanticizing ghosts.
It would have been nice to have stronger character development in general. No, I wasn’t expecting the characters to spend the first half hour talking about their hobbies or dreams. This was a heavily plot-based story, and I respect that. But knowing about who the characters were as individuals would have made the storyline more memorable.
If you really love ghost stories and can overlook a few plot holes, I would recommend The Curse of La Llorona.
Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.
I narrowed down this week’s topic to movie quotes only.
“Just keep swimming.” -Finding Nemo (2003)
Why I Love It: Sometimes this is the best advice for a hard day, week, month, or year!
“If you build it, he will come.” – Field of Dreams (1989)
Why I Love It: I’ve had multiple experiences in life that showed the value in putting in hard work long before you have any inkling if, how, or when that effort will pay off. More often than not, you will be rewarded when you least expect it.
“Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.” – Back to the Future (1985)
Why I Love It: This makes me giggle. It’s as simple as that.
“There’s no crying in baseball!” – A League of Their Own (1992)
Why I Love It: Not only does this make me giggle, the context gives me hope as well. This film was loosely based on the first women’s baseball teams in the United States during World War II. The players dealt with many naysayers who thought women shouldn’t play baseball, especially professionally. I truly enjoyed seeing how they and their coach responded to that and rose above everyone who tried to stop them.
“This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” – Casablanca (1942)
Why I Love It: There’s nothing like meeting someone and realizing that you two would make excellent friends.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.” – Gandhi (1982)
Why I Love It: Hope is something that should always be cultivated.
Today’s post is going to be short and sweet because I will (hopefully) be following up on it at least once this autumn.
Over the past few months I’ve been working ahead on blog posts as ideas pop into my mind and I have the time to write them.
Right now I’m thinking about Thanksgiving films. I’ve reviewed many stories set during Halloween and various winter holidays, but I haven’t done the same thing for Thanksgiving yet.
This is something I want to change in October for Canadian Thanksgiving or November for American Thanksgiving. Maybe I’ll even be able to review films for both of these holidays!
The rules are simple.
Rule #1: The film should be at least loosely related to any speculative fiction genre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal, alternate history, etc. so that it will fit the theme of this blog. I am willing to stretch these terms to include films that might only brush against these genres lightly if you say they’re great stories.
Rule #2: The film should be something I can access legally by either purchasing it online or watching it on a streaming service. This isn’t something I’m ethically comfortable compromising on.
The films I’m currently considering, assuming I can procure copies of them, include the following:
Addams Family Values (1993)
Jim Henson’s Turkey Hollow(2015)
ThanksKilling (2009)
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973)
A Thanksgiving Tale (1983)
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)
As you may have noticed, the year a film was originally released doesn’t matter. While everything on this list happens to be in English, I also have no problem watching something with subtitles if someone recommends a film that includes that.
I have two questions for my readers as I work on this project.
Thank you to Sabrina @ Notes From a Paper Plane Nomad for coming up with this topic!
Winters here in Ontario have been milder than usual these past few years. When we do get cold, stormy weather, here are some of the things I like to do to amuse myself during them:
Dance
If you like eating snacks while watching movies, go put your favourite snacks on your shopping list.
Content warning: vomiting and references to the death of a parent. I will not be discussing these things in my review.
Content warning: mental illness, blood, violence, and trauma.
One of my favourite type of horror is anything that comes embedded with a social message. The preview for this film makes it look like a slasher flick. While there were certainly elements of that horror genre, there was a lot of thought-provoking material that couldn’t be included in that clip for spoiler reasons.
There was one subplot that I wish had been given more attention and development. It involved the inclusion of rabbits of all things. I still haven’t been able to figure out why that particular animal was added to such a dark storyline. It’s a minor criticism of something I really enjoyed, but I do wish they’d either been cut out of the plot altogether or, even better, given more opportunities to get tied in with everything else.
Content warning: deaths of children. I will be discussing this in my review. 
I narrowed down this week’s topic to movie quotes only.
Today’s post is going to be short and sweet because I will (hopefully) be following up on it at least once this autumn.
Never the Same Again: A Review of The Cured
The Cured is a 2017 Irish horror drama about former zombies being reintegrated into society after being cured of their disease.
While there are some violent scenes in it, this film is much more about how society stitches itself back together after a pandemic has ripped everything apart.
In short, this wasn’t about watching characters get hurt. It was about how everyone dealt with the traumatic aftermath of this sort of event several years after order was restored and everyone went back to work and school.
I’ve never seen a zombie film focus on this part of that story arc before. It was so unique that I had to watch this despite rarely being into zombies or post-apocalyptic fiction these days.
The character list is quite small this time because the vast majority of the scenes centred on this one family and how they coped.
Characters
Sam Keeley (right) as Senan Browne
Senan Browne was a former zombie who was cured. He was deeply traumatized by his experiences and struggled to find any sense of normality even after he was deemed to no longer be a threat to society.
After his release from the treatment centre, he was sent to live with his sister-in-law, Abbie, and young nephew, Cillian, who can be partially seen in Senan’s arms in the above photo.
Senan’s social worker assigned him to work as a porter at the same treatment centre that cured him. He was such a quiet, withdrawn man that I really wondered how he’d respond to this work environment.
Ellen Page as Abbie (Abigail) Reynolds
Abbie was Senan’s sister-in-law. Cillian is her son. Her husband, Luke, died early on in the zombie outbreak, so she raised her son alone in a violent and unpredictable environment.
She was just as traumatized as her brother-in-law, but she expressed it in completely different ways. Abbie was hyper-aware of everything going on around her and insisted on always knowing where her loved ones were for obvious reasons.
My Review
This is one of those rare zombie films that I’d wholeheartedly recommend to people who hate that genre. The zombies could easily have been substituted for real-world issues like pandemics or war and come to almost the same conclusion. It was the characters’ reactions to them that pushed the plot forward in the vast majority of cases.
Actually living through a zombie attack would be traumatizing for anyone, and the plot did an excellent job of showing how the two main characters reacted both in the moment and several years later when they were safe and together again. Both of them showed clear signs of mental illness as a result of these experiences, including flashbacks, panic attacks, guilt, rage, anxiety, mood swings, serious trouble focusing, and avoidance of things that reminded them of those terrible days. All of these scenes were handled sensitively.
Senan’s experiences had been unique ones. Without giving too much information away, life for people in his position was extremely difficult. Not only did he have to deal with prejudice and mistreatment from people who’d survived the initial outbreak without being turned, he also had to come to terms with what he’d done while he was a zombie. The social commentary on how we treat people whose choices have disgusted and terrified us was filled with food for thought. It almost reminded me of how some folks responded to people who had AIDS in the 1980s or to people who abuse drugs in the present day.
It would have been nice to see more time spent on the backstories of Abbie and of the doctor who cured Senan. Both of these women gave small hints about their experiences during the zombiepocalypse, but there was so much more room there for development. Yes, Senan had a unique tale to tell, but so did a woman who kept her baby alive for four years as a single parent in such a harrowing environment as well as a doctor who bravely treated and eventually cured many of the zombies while paying a terrible price for her courage.
I liked the way this film explored how Senan’s life had been forever altered by their pasts. Finally having a cure is by no means the same as an outbreak never occurring at all. While he had found a new sense of normalcy, he’d never be able to forget the events that set his story into motion in the first place.
I’d recommend The Cured to anyone who likes dramas.
(If you decide to watch the trailer below before watching this film, do keep in mind that it gives away some big plot twists. Someday I should write a post about why trailers shouldn’t do that!)
The Cured is available on Netflix.
2 Comments
Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy
Tagged as 2010s, Drama, Films, Horror, Irish, Social Commentary, Zombies