Cult Movie Challenge 2016 | 16/52 | Cannon Group
Christmas Eve, 1950
Wilfred Butler runs out of his Massachusetts mansion drenched in flames. He tries to roll in the snow, but he is too late, and the fire consumes him. The police believe it was an accident, but the narrator assures us otherwise.
Butler leaves the house and grounds to his grandson Jeffrey Butler on the condition that the house never be touched.
20 Years Later
We hear news of an asylum escapee
Butler has asked lawyer John Carter to sell the house. Carter goes to the house with his mistress, Ingrid. He sells it to the town for a pittance. When he tells them he’s staying at the Butler house, they try to offer him any other option, but he declines.
While John is away, someone kills a dog and sneaks into the house. When John and Ingrid go to bed, they sneak in with an axe and chop them up. They then read a passage from the Bible and leave a crucifix at the scene of the crime.
Jeffrey makes it to the house, but it’s locked up. He goes to the mayor’s and meets Diane, the mayor’s daughter. She tells him about a strange call — that someone named Marianne is waiting for him.
The town holds dark secrets. The Butler mansion is at the heart of it.
The movie has small documentary touches — the narration, the still photos, and audio samples — but doesn’t pretend to be a documentary.
It takes its time to get to anything. It’s nearly 40 minutes in before we meet our leads. There’s also a whole cast of townspeople that need to be killed.
The narrator, Diane, does most of the explaining, reading, and thinking about things she finds. Wilfred does the rest once someone finds his diary.
It’s all so convoluted. The story, as it’s structured, isn’t a movie. With all the narration, it should’ve been a written story.
I was never super invested beyond wanting to know who the killer was. By the time it came around, it didn’t matter.
Stray Thoughts / Spoilers
- Minor key Silent Night in the opening credits
- You’re not going to pick up the hitchhiker with a tire iron?
- “I love you’re such an important man.”
- Is that John Carradine?? Did he say no to anything? His was in Red Zone Cuba, so I guess not.
- I thought the cop was looking at a centerfold, but he was looking at football players. Gay!
- Why does Diane let Jeffrey in??
- Tess’s murder is upsetting
- Of course, it’s an incest story
- If Wilfred wanted to fake his death and for no one to touch the house, why didn’t he live in the house?
- Wait, so the town leaders are all asylum escapees?? And no one noticed??
- Wait. Diane is Marianne??
- No, Wilfred’s just confused. I am, too!
- Didn’t the lawyer say something about the foundation being so thick the house couldn’t be torn down? And then a single bulldozer tears it down?