October Horror Challenge 2019 #16: "We Have Always Lived in the Castle"

This is one of those books that I read millions of years ago when I was young, and I remember that it was good and creepy and cool, but I can't for the life of me remember what happens in it, so I don't know WHY it's good. The joys of being old. Srsly. But this movie has a cast I really like, so I'm hoping that I like this movie, and that I hopefully remember why I liked it after I'm done.

This movie is about a strange family who live in a huge mansion on the outskirts of a town where everyone pretty much hates them. Really people are afraid of them, and of course they have some dark secret, but no one knows what it is, and the narrator keeps alluding to it without ever telling us what it is. Taissa Farmiga plays the main character Mary Catharine, and Alexandra Daddario plays her sister Constance. I like both actresses, though their characters frustrate me. I hate it when people keep hinting at some big secret but won't tell you what it is. Rude.

Crispin Glover plays the creepy uncle of the sisters. He seems to get a lot of "creepy guy" roles. He's certainly good at playing the weirdo. He's confined to a wheelchair after a horrible tragedy years ago where the rest of the family died of arsenic poisoning but he was only crippled. Constance was blamed for the deaths, but she was acquitted by the jury, though the rest of the townspeople think she did it. After this tragedy, it's understandable that the family is a bit odd, but they're not just odd, they're really weird. When another cousin shows up unexpectedly and stays with them in the creepy old house, things start to change, and Mary Catherine hates change.

I get that the family is supposed to be mysterious, but to me they were more annoying. The new cousin is a jerk who acts like he wants to hook up with Constance even though she's his cousin, which is creepy and gross. Mary clearly wants cousin Charles to leave (but I kind of want them all to leave, since they get on my last damn nerve).

It also takes forever for anything to happen in this movie. Mostly the characters all just wander around being awkward and angry. There's some tension there, but more of the "God I hate these people" kind rather than anything that draws me into the story. We do get to see some horrendous and evil behavior from the people in the town, and the ending has a lot of action, but not enough to make me glad I watched the movie . Maybe the book wasn't good either,  and that's why I don't remember it. Either way, the movie is all atmosphere and not much else.

EDIT 10/14/2019

I will say that this movie gets better with time. The more I thought about it after watching it,  the more I liked it. Part of that is because in looking up other negative reviews to assure myself that I wasn't alone in being frustrated by the movie, I thought a lot of them were kind of snotty and petty. A lot of people insulted the acting in the movie, and I don't think that's fair because I think the actors did an amazing job. Even Crispin Glover, who, while I do love him, has a tendency to chew the scenery a bit more than necessary, actually reigns it in for this performance, and his "quirky weird uncle" reveals himself to be a sad, tired old man by the end of the film. Reviewers slammed Sebastian Stan's performance as cousin Charles, too, and I don't think that's fair either. I think he did a great job oozing testosterone and patriarchy. I wanted to climb into the screen and stab him myself.

I still wish we had seen more of the family's past and how they ended up where they are now, but that mysteriousness is part of the whole gothic feel of the movie, and it's also very Shirley Jackson. She doesn't over explain anything in her stories. She knows that human motivation is often muddled and confusing, and rarely black and white, so she leaves a lot of ambiguity in her stories for readers to think about and puzzle over after reading. Perhaps that works better in a written format, and that's why it's so frustrating in this movie, but I have to give the movie credit for leaving the story the way it was written and resisting the urge to give it pat answers.

Filmmakers today really don't deal well with this kind of ambiguity. Off the top of my head,  I can only think of one director who is willing to do this kind of filmmaking, and that's Pascal Laugier, who directed the movies "Martyrs" and "The Tall Man." His movies make me want to tear my hair out, too, because there's always so much left unfinished at the end and I'm still thinking about them years after watching them. It's frustrating as hell, but I guess I have to admire the movies that dare to do this. "Martha Marcy May Marlene" is another movie that does this very well. So I guess "We have Always Lived in the Castle" is in good company, even if it isn't the kind of company you want to invite over for dinner.

So yes, this movie is as frustrating as hell, but I'm beginning to think it may be worth watching,  not in spite of that fact but because of it.