Rating: 2.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2018 | 20/52 | Cynthia Rothrock
Megan calls for her mommy, screaming. Her mother, Karen, rushes into the room to discover that six-year-old Megan has seen a moth and begs her mom to kill it. Instead, Karen scoops it in her hand and releases it into the night. Outside, breathing and steps watch from across the street.
The next day is Megan’s birthday. Karen hits traffic, party balloons filling her backseat, so she calls home on her car phone. Her seventeen-year-old daughter Julie picks up, who is at home setting up decorations for the party. The doorbell rings, and Julie answers. Karen hears through the phone the sound of Julie choking. Then bangs. Then screams. Megan will not hang up the phone, looking for another phone to call the police. But it’s too late: the intruder murders Julie.
We watch Karen through moments of grief: the wake, looking at Julie’s things, and spending time with Megan. She imagines every man she passes as the intruder. Detective Denillo reaches out to assure Karen that there is enough evidence to find and convict the intruder. He also gives her a card for a support group for grieving parents. There, she hears person after person talking about their child’s killers getting reduced sentences, paroles, and walking free.
Denillo catches the killer: a man named Robert Doob. Karen becomes obsessed with knowing his face. So, when lawyers get swapped and DNA evidence is not submitted, Doog walks away. Slowly, slowly, Karen decides she might need to take matters into her hands.
— Like it or not, he has rights. — What about my daughter's rights?
This movie is pure exploitation painted with a ’90s mid-budget sheen. The first SA scene is indulgent—they only give a few brief shots, but there’s no ambiguity about what happens. The second one shows everything (yes, he SAs and kills again). The characters are coarse, particularly in their treatment of Karen. Doon is, as others have stated, cartoonishly evil, similar to Freeway but with none of the comedic undertones. The justice system is… appropriately represented as inept and petty. The result is a lot of unintentional laughs.
The most obvious comparison to another movie would be Death Wish, which is also about a parent getting revenge for the rape/murder of their daughter. Sally Field is entertaining because she knows how to play the role for maximum emotional impact. I can see why Roger Ebert hated this movie. If good films are empathy machines, then this movie is bad because it is an antipathy machine—it only reinforces biases and stirs conservative ire.
But the film does make one point that I think is salient—the police do not care about you. The police are not invested in helping to solve murders and SAs. If they were, there wouldn’t be decades of backlogs of DNA evidence that is expiring while they cruise the streets for minorities to kill. I’m not saying that, therefore, you should become a vigilante. I’m just saying that the police weren’t designed to solve these types of problems.
So, yes, I didn’t mind watching this movie once I was able to put it in its appropriate box. It’s not great, but it managed to manipulate me enough to root for it. Which might make it worse?
** Stray Thoughts **
- I started watching the Eye for an Eye that PlutoTV linked to, and it took me a minute to realize that this Eye for an Eye is actually a documentary about Mark Stroman, who is on death row. I thought it was just really cheap, but then I looked up Mark Stroman on IMDb and didn’t see the name associated with the 1996 movie starring Sally Field.
- Cynthia Rothrock doesn’t appear until an hour in as the self-defense instructor, Tina. I don’t think we see her face. Yes, I still recognized her, whatever that says about me.
- This movie features a cast of character actors. Keith David, Philip Baker Hall, Donal Logue, Armin Shimerman, Ross Bagley (Buckwheat from the 90s <i<Little Rascals</i> movie).
- Screenwriting partners and married couple Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver have a unique career. After doing oddball thrillers like this and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, they write Rise of the Planet of the Apes and get bigger opportunities from there, including Jurassic World, the 2020 Mulan remake, and all the Avatars from The Way of Water on.
- Karen makes sandwiches for Mack, Megan, and Julie, all while helping Julie with her French.
- At work, Megan showcases a state-of-the-art TV-based media research library. On one TV is the O.J. trial.
- Why is there an ice sculpture at a six-year-old’s birthday party? Because, “You don’t know these six-year-olds.”
- Of course, she has an Aunt Flo. We watch her slip on a toy and hurt her hip. The filmmakers intend this scene to be comedic relief.
- Joe Mantegna is such a bad actor. He’s reading off the ways they gathered DNA evidence from the crime scene as though he’s reading off a to-do list.
- Finally, a movie set in 1996 featuring the Macarena.
- To demonstrate just how evil Doody is, we see him pour hot coffee on a dog for funsies. He also swerves around in traffic just to cause chaos.
- As we all know, when you learn self-defense, you become a top in bed.