BEFORE: Last night I came home on the subway and everyone else had been out partying and was dressed as Scooby-Doo characters or bloody Carrie from the prom, and I thought about that subway ride in "Scream VI". Thankfully I didn't see any Ghostface killers, real or fake. I'm back out at the New Yorker Festival today, the afternoon and night shift, I'm not sure if I'll be able to post on time if I'm out very late. My No-Movie November break is coming up, just four horror films left, and then I can focus more on work and getting some other things done around the house.
John Ralston carries over from "Infinity Pool", and a lot of actors come back from earlier films seen this October, which is bound to happen at some point. Today's film comes from the people who made the last two "Scream" movies so there's bound to be some crossover there. But of course I didn't link here directly from "Scream" because I needed to fill up the month, and there were connections all over the place that I didn't need to use, that's just how it all shook down.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Hunt" (Movie #3,964)
THE PLOT: A bride's wedding night takes a sinister turn when her eccentric new in-laws force her to take part in a terrifying game.
AFTER: Because I guess the title "Hide and Seek: The Movie" really might not have worked well. This is a film about a recently-married woman who learns that her new husband's family has a bit of an odd tradition, since their fortune came from board games, they insist that Grace is not an official part of the family until they all play a game together. It's a little odd that Alex couldn't tell her about this weird tradition BEFORE the wedding, that's the first tip-off that something just isn't right.
Of course, it just couldn't be chess (not everyone knows how to play) or checkers (way too simple) or Monopoly (it's a large family, that would take way too long). Instead they let the deck of cards decides, and the draw says the game should be hide and seek. But this family seems to think that hide and seek is played with knives and guns and axes, so yeah, second indication that something's not right with this family.
They really DRAG this one out - there's maybe five minutes of plot here (and I think I'm being generous) and that's stretched out over 90 minutes of screen time, so yeah, do the math and it's a lot of filler in this thriller.
Like Grace has to draw a card from a deck, that should take all of three seconds, just hold out the deck and have her pick a card. No, somebody has to make a show of selecting the card FOR her, and put it into a drawer in some weird box, then the box has to get passed around to table so everyone holds it, then SHE has to get it, and think about it, and then pop out the drawer to reveal the card? All of this is very, very unnecessary, it's just a wastie of screen time, and come on, the WHOLE FILM is like that, every little thing takes five times longer than it should. Is it worth it? Nah, it just makes me feel like I wasted my time, which is worth money, BTW.
Unless it's a card force, which means of course that the fix is in. There are probably a dozen ways to force the "hide and seek" card on her, if that's the game they want to play. It could be a deck of cards where EVERY card says "Hide and Seek" on it, or someone could swap out the card or they could put one card inside that little drawer in the box and pull a different card out of a different drawer. Yeah, I watch a lot of magic shows and I figure out all the tricks and I'm a big fan of Penn & Teller, who tend to force the three of clubs on people.
So instead of calling a NITPICK POINT here, I'm going to give this film the benefit of the doubt, and assume that no matter what, the game was always going to be Hide and Seek with weapons. The family WANTS to kill this woman for some reason, let's concede this point and move forward from there, because it leads to a number of interesting plot possibilities. Why do they want to kill this woman? Ah, we do find out eventually, I'm not going to promise that it makes any sense, but we do find out.
Cartoon-level violence, like Elmer Fudd or Daffy Duck-level confusion and stupidity. Grace is so very lucky that the members of Alex's family are all spoiled drunks and drug users, and act like, "Hey, I don't even know how to use a crossbow, but I'm going to pick one up for some reason and WHOOPS, I just fired it!" or "Let me just look down the barrel of this gun, maybe I can figure out why it's not working.." and BLAMMO! Actually I think they take out a few servants first, but it's not long before the other family members start taking each other out.
The there's probably the worst case ever of "Deus Ex Machina" as petty infighting and this mysterious family curse takes the rest of them out. Though I suppose it's really "Satan Ex Machina" if they worship the man downstairs instead, and maybe that's who's really pulling the strings here, this family maybe had a little help getting rich and the Dark Lord keeps demanding that they sacrifice their brides in exchange? At least I think that's what's going on here, it's all just a bit unclear. I don't want to give anything away here, but I think it would have been stronger if Grace had more to do with saving herself here, by taking action instead of just letting things happen to the family members. Just a thought.
Also starring Samara Weaving (last seen in "Scream VI"), Adam Brody, (last seen in "Scream" (2022)) Mark O'Brien (last seen in "Blue Bayou"), Henry Czerny (also last seen in "Scream VI"), Andie MacDowell (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Melanie Scrofano (last seen in "Robocop" (2014)), Kristian Bruun (last seen in "Life" (2015)), Elyse Levesque, Nicky Guadagni (last seen in "Lars and the Real Girl"), Liam McDonald (last seen in "It Chapter Two"), Ethan Tavares, Hanneke Talbot (last seen in "Stockholm"), Celine Tsai, Daniela Barbosa (last seen in "Flatliners" (2017)), Chase Churchill, Etienne Kellici, Andrew Anthony, Elana Dunkelman (last heard in "Leap!"), Kate Ziegler, James Eddy, Adam Winlove-Smith, Guy Busick, Emma Jonnz (last seen in "She's the Man"), R. Christopher Murphy, James Vanderbilt and the voice of Nat Faxon (last heard in "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe"),
RATING: 3 out of 10 dead goats in a pit
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