This is it, folks. One of the first horror movies I ever reviewed, for a website called "Cinema Crazed."
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So what made this movie so special? You all know me, so you know I watch hundreds of horror movies, and while I love most of them, what makes one stand above the rest? Well, as always, it's complicated.
While there are tons of "found footage " type horror movies now, this was one of the first horror movies that claimed to be part of the "found footage" type, which is video footage that is found after a horrible crime is committed. and since it was shot by the people in charge of the crime, it offers insight into the crimes being committed.
So I approached this movie like any other horror movie submitted for review: like it was something I had just now seen and was willing to share my opinion.
So first of all, the killers in this movie are named Wayne and Andrea. At the time I watched this movie, back in 2009, two of my neighbors were a husband and wife named Wayne and Andrea, which made this even creepier for me (and they led a youth ministry at their church! Yeah, it just keeps getting more messed up, right?). Plus the director of this movie released another movie in the series to me, a hidden movie about the characters within the movie, and how they belong to a support group of other serial killers, who talk about their twisted desires during group meetings, and this bonus movie (SKINS, or Serial Killers in Need of Support) was actually stolen off my front porch when it was first delivered in the mail, but later it reappeared in its open envelope, like someone stole it but then returned it after watch9it, which is kind of hilarious when you think about it. I counted this as a point to the movie's power.
So as I said, this movie is comprised mostly of a
Husband and wife who find their greatest joy in killing people. That's it. The husband finds joy in cutting the lawn to it's most particular distinctions, and also in hacking people to pieces in his basement, and the wife finds joy. in baking the tastiest apple pie and in mixing the best ginger ale punch that will put people to sleep and keep them asleep while Wayne cuts their throats.
Watching this movie, seeing them argue about the best way to subdue victims, and whether a pregnant victim counts as two victims while they carve out her fetus, or hearing them torture their own teenage daughter who may have seen too much, is chilling.
So here I am, newly saved, graduated with a degree in English and literature and American Studies, and I'm asked to write a review of this movie. Something i never mentioned in my original review is that one of my high school instru8who helped me get ready to take my GED so I could graduate from high school and start college, read some of my early movie reviews and said I wasn't really using my talent in support of God's kingdom, because writing about horror movie didn't draw people into God's kingdom. So since I respected her a lot, I was leery about reviewing "Head Cases," since it was a horror movie too. So in my review, I say it's scary, and I say it's groundbreaking, but what I don't have the words yet to say is how it's important...so much more than it may ever know.
I, and I fear a lot of 90s kids, graduated in the time of school shootings and psychological evaluations, and fear of what may lay in our minds, and a lot of us were sent to "Christian counseling" that sought to mold us into whatever seemed most "normal" to our hosts, which often fell in the line of "gender conforming," "compliant, " etc. It took me years to see how that messed up what I saw around me, but let's review:
One of the most harrowing scenes in the movie "Head Cases" happens when the man and woman must handle their teenage daughter who witnesses their brutal crimes, and while the wife pleads for her daughter's life, the husband must decide what has to be done.
Take it as a teenage girl who once had to plead for her life in front of a mother who was holding onto love of someone who does violence...you never want to be found on the short side of that stick. Because in the end, you are found worthy of death, and not life, because the person who should be your advocate no matter what loves your abuser more than she loves you.
So if you've seen the movie, you know what path was chosen by the mother and father, and you know what happened in the end. But for the sake of this review, I ask you to try to view this movie as one who hasn't seen many horror movies, but who has seen the true horror of twisted desires that are worth more than a child'slife, to see the stigma as one who has confessed the truth instead of one who has chosen life. Because there will always be those families, together, that cast people out, but think they are strong because they are still together, stronger than the lone person who stands against the group and says they are wrong. You think the truth is always the winner, and it8slways best to speak out, until you9standing in th ed cold alone against a group that is so much bigger than you.
When I first wrote my original review of this movie, I posted a blog post as one who was confused with the movie as presented, and I asked what the motivation was for the characters who chose to tell the story as presented, even if it was confusing to viewers, and I was shocked when the director of the movie actually answered me, and he explained that the movie, while told from the killer's perspective, it may say on the surface that the accepted narrative given by Wayne and Andrea is true, but there's a bigger group behind the releasing of the murderous footage, a group who know the truth, so it's almost as if some larger force is letting the footage scroll by because they were trying to catch the guilty parties in a trap, and that's what happens at the end of the movie. It seems like the movie is saying "darkness and evil wins, but you have to look closer, because there is more going on behind thescenesthanyou know."
So here, I tell you, for the first time, what has opened my heart in recent years, and that when I first reviewed this movie. I only saw what was explicitly presented, so I thought it was a movie about evil and the people who commit evil, those horrible people who do horrible things. But this movie was about something bigger. The evil that lurks behind everyday life. About dads who fix the engine of the car, and moms who make lemonade, but who as also crush sleeping pills into their ginger ale punch . Who might see you slit open on a table, who might like the horror of the evil intruding on the banal landscape of the ordinary.
I don't know if I'm ready for the ordinary, everyday evil that lurks in the shadows. Sometimes it seems bigger than I am, and that scares me. But I also know that I've dealt with it every day of my life so far, and I know if anyone can portray the banality of everyday evil and the power of redemption. It's Anthony Spadaccini and "Viscera," his movie which showcased horror and it's aftermath. So I wait, in hope of the light. And I hope you, my friends, will wait for me too. For the hope that comes from horror.
