BEFORE: OK, let me just say that I tried. I tried to get something more Halloween-like here, only my efforts were thwarted. I could have had Tim Blake Nelson carry over to "Nightmare Alley", a Guillermo Del Toro film I really want to see. Or I could have had Dan Stevens carry over to "The Sea Beast", an animated film about a sea monster, or "Blithe Spirit", which is about ghosts or seances, I think. Or "The Rental", which I think is also a horror movie. But the problem is, none of those films get me where I want to be, I already worked out my connections to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and those films just won't get me there - or if they do, I wasn't able to see the path.
Keep in mind that both of my theme months, October and February, are sometimes made up of small chains that get pieced together, smaller groups of bricks that get mortared together to form a wall. So maybe tonight's film is mortar, not a brick, I don't know, but it connected the end of one small chain with the start of another, and that small chain that starts tomorrow is going to get me to Halloween, then via the new "Matrix" film I'll be headed towards Thanksgiving, then Christmas.
So no, maybe this isn't a true horror film, because there are no monsters or ghosts or demons in it. But read the plot line, because there's a reason why I lumped this one in with horror films in the first place - even if it's not blatant horror, it's at least horrific, I'm thinking. Hey, last year I had to use the "Spielberg" documentary to connect two chains together, I'll do what it takes to keep the chain going, even if I'm bending my own rules in the process.
Austin Stowell carries over from "Colossal". And if this one isn't your bag, I promise more films about monsters and serial killers are on the way.
THE PLOT: Hunter, a newly pregnant housewife, finds herself increasingly compelled to consume dangerous objects. As her husband and his family tighten their control over her life, she must confront the dark secret behind her new obsession.
AFTER: Well, I'm just going to say that I was wrong about there not being any monsters or ghosts or demons in this film, there are all three. The monsters are Hunter's husband and in-laws, who berate and belittle her at every opportunity, to the point where her opinion on anything never matters. There's just no way she's ever going to be an equal partner in that marriage, I think because the family has some money and she doesn't, so she's always, ALWAYS going to be made to feel "less than" by them. And the ghosts are in her past, her back-story has violence and an event that she may feel shame over, even if it's not her fault. And then there are the inner demons that all of this chaos and uncertainty in her life cause and feed.
Even if we're not exactly sure how all of these things lead Hunter toward swallowing non-edible things, there's still more of a connection here than I saw last night in "Colossal" between the toxic relationships and the fallout from them. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how a boy destroying a girl's 8th grade school project in spite led to her manifesting a giant monster from her subconscious, halfway around the world. But maybe it's a bit easier to see how a woman constantly being made to feel like her opinion doesn't matter might go a little off the deep end and start swallowing marbles and thumbtacks.
It's still quite disturbing, make no mistake, and it's very hard to understand for those of us who were yelled at in grade school for eating paste, or paper, or dirt. To some degree, those things might be part of the learning process, and some people learn the hard way not to chew their pencils or put the caps of pens in their mouth - I recall that certain brands of pens had to put holes in their caps just in case a kid swallowed one, then they might not die if air could still pass through the swallowed object. And I'm old enough to remember when certain toys were designated as choking hazards because they had pieces that were small enough for little kids to swallow.
And as if it weren't hard enough to be a parent, even some foods are choking hazards for kids, depending on their ages and sizes. For toddlers items like corn kernels, grapes or chunks of meat and cheese are choking hazards, which I guess is why all baby food needs to be puréed. This is part of the reason why I'm not a parent, because it's just so much damn work, and I don't like cutting my own food into tiny pieces, so why should I do that for another human? Right, to keep them alive. It seems like nearly everything can kill a baby, even eating wrong and sleeping wrong, so to me it's a wonder how so many of them manage to grow up. I've got a nephew who had digestive problems when he was a toddler, and the only things he could eat were cut-up grapes and goldfish crackers. But now he's 14, and he still only eats grapes and and goldfish crackers, from what I can tell. I guess once someone gets into a pattern of behavior it's very hard to pull them out of it, but I really wonder what's going to happen when and if he ever wants to try some other food. If he were my kid, I'd tell him there's a great big wonderful world of foods out there to try, but it's not my place to do so. But there I was with my sister's family in North Carolina and everyone was enjoying delicious BBQ meats but him, he stuck with his goldfish crackers, and I guess on one level I admire his commitment to them, but come on, he's missing out on so much!
To me, the best part of life is traveling around and eating different foods - not just the BBQ of different cities, but I love sushi and pad thai and deli meats and fried chicken, and even salad if I can get one with a good balsamic vinaigrette, maybe some goat cheese and beets in there. I was married to a woman who went vegetarian, and I just couldn't handle it. We broke up for several other reasons, but not being on the same culinary page was perhaps the start of it. My second wife doesn't eat any seafood, which is also hard for me to understand because I grew up in New England - but I do my best to understand it and honor her choices. For me, I'm not big on a number of fruits, like melons and berries and anything exotic like kiwi or dragonfruit. I don't like bananas either, but sweet plantains with Latin food is fine. But the only "good" fruits to me are apples, grapes, oranges, lemons, limes and raspberry products like jam and fillings, but not the raspberries themselves. My point is, we all have our dietary quirks, likes and dislikes.
That being said, swallowing marbles, thumbtacks, needles is way off the board. Pica is the name of this eating disorder that compels people to consume or crave non-food items. And, yes, this plot checks out because Wiki is telling me that emotional trauma, family issues, and pregnancy can all be risk factors for pica. And then within the larger umbrella of pica there are different subtypes, like xylophagia (eating paper), geophagia (eating soil, sand or clay), hyalophagia (eating glass), lithophagia (stones), acuphagia (sharp objects), metallophagia (metal), trichophagia (hair, wool) and yes, coprophagia (umm, feces). What's probably unusual about the depiction of Hunter here is that she doesn't seem to have a special focus, she eats things from several of these categories, probably for dramatic effect or creative license. I remember that I liked chewing ice cubes when I was a kid, which is called pagophagia, and my mother was always afraid I was going to break my teeth while doing so, but that never happened. I don't know when or why I stopped, I just kind of grew out of it, I guess.
How many people suffer from this is tough to determine, because many pica sufferers may be reluctant to admit their condition and seek treatment. The pregnancy angle is a bit disconcerting, because we're already familiar with pregnant women having cravings for things like pickles, how many also have cravings for eating paper or dirt? And how few of those women understand this and are willing to talk about it? And the desires might also be linked to anemia or places in the world where people have a mineral-deficient diet. Makes sense, I guess, if your body needs iron or other minerals, and vitamins or supplements are not available, your brain somehow tells you to eat soil or metal?
For Hunter, her husband and in-laws try to "cure" her of her condition, and of course first they try yelling at her, but as you might imagine, that only makes the situation worse. They also hire someone to follow her around all day and watch her as she does chores, because of course they're all much too busy to do that themselves. Then they try to commit her to a mental institution, because by continuing to swallow dangerous objects, she's putting her unborn baby's life at risk, in addition to her own. But maybe there's a reason for that, maybe she never really wanted the baby in the first place, perhaps she's just living the life that other people want her to live, rather than the one SHE wants to live. Either way, she finds a way to get away from the family in order to try and crack the code of her own life, resolve those issues from long ago, figure out who she wants to be, and then, only then, does she maybe have a shot at being happy, or at least content.
There's obviously an abortion angle here, and this is the hot-button topic of the day right now, since several states have seen fit to find a way to take away a right that's been legal in the U.S. for fifty years. While I don't really have a dog in this fight, I support a woman's right to choose and a man's right to shut the hell up about it. Do I wish there were fewer abortions? Well, sure, OK, but to insure that you've got to fund sex education and birth control, and for some unknown reason, the same people who are against abortion are also against those helpful things, too. Which I don't understand, wouldn't it be a great idea if the unwanted unborn babies never got conceived in the first place? Then we wouldn't have a problem, would we? But no, they don't want to interfere with "God's will", whatever that means. What a crock of shit, does God really want us to be so fruitful and multiply to the extent where we use up all the Earth's natural resources and then suffer and die together as a species? That makes zero sense, if God cared about us he'd let us figure out a way to keep the world's population down to a minimum so that all the people who are alive can enjoy it more. But since God doesn't exist, or if he does, he doesn't get involved in the day-to-day operations on Earth, so we should all stop living based on what we THINK God wants us to do, and start living in ways that make more sense, long-term.
Those who might think the best way to stop or reduce abortions is through legislation are flat-out wrong, the way to stop or reduce abortions is through sex education and birth control. If conservatives could cave a bit on these issues, just maybe both sides could meet somewhere in the middle? Or is that too much to hope for? Either way, I'm anticipating the results of the November election, hoping that the pendulum swings back in the liberal direction, because I believe that's better for the planet and the long-term survival of mankind. If God doesn't see things that way, let him tell me that himself, but so far he's been notoriously silent.
This film made only $33,000 at the box office, which I don't quite understand - or then again, maybe I do. If you make a film about a masked serial killer chopping people up with knives or a chainsaw, people seem to be fascinated by that. But make a film about somebody swallowing marbles and needles, and they'll stay away in droves. That's where we find ourselves, I guess.
There is a popular trick where a magician appears to swallow several needles and a length of thread, and we are meant to believe that somehow he threads all the needles while they are in his stomach, then he regurgitates them with all of the needles hanging from the thread. I call b.s. on this, because it's much easier to believe that sleight of hand is involved, and also distraction, these are the magician's best friends. And he can PRETEND to swallow them without actually doing so, then at some point distract the audience, remove the unthreaded needles from his mouth and replace them with the threaded set, thus completing the illusion. It seems Harry Houdini started the trick with the threaded needle set already between his bottom lip and gums, sorry to burst anyone's bubble. The trick is also sometimes done with razor blades, you can look up on the internet how that variation is done, but bear in mind that if the magician actually swallowed the blades, his esophagus would be cut to ribbons.
But then there's also Stevie Starr, aka "The Regurgitator", and if anybody's actually swallowing things and bringing them up again from his stomach in whatever order or condition he chooses, then it's him. However, some people believe that he's just an illusionist, and a very good one. The items he "brings up" again are generally free of stomach acid, though, that may be an indicator that something else is taking place, other than what we're being told.
I'll stick with deep-fried items from the State Fair, thanks. When I told my boss yesterday what I ate at the fairs, including a deep-fried cheeseburger, a deep-fried apple pie, and deep-fried Reese's peanut butter cups wrapped in bacon, he said, "You know, all this seems rather unhealthy..." Umm, yeah, that's kind of the point.
Also starring Haley Bennett (last seen in "Hillbilly Elegy"), Denis O'Hare (last seen in "The Normal Heart"), Elizabeth Marvel (last seen in "The Phenom"), David Rasche (last seen in "The Sentinel"), Luna Lauren Velez (last seen in "The First Purge"), Zabryna Guevara, Laith Nakli, Babak Tafti (last seen in "Terminator Salvation"), Nicole Kang, Olivia Perez (last seen in 'In the Heights"), Kristi Kirk, Alyssa Bresnahan, Maya Days, Elise Santora, Kathleen Butler, Nicholas M. Garofolo.
RATING: 5 out of 10 rubber gloves
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