Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Jul 5, 2018 9:02:59 GMT
This was a movie I watched last night. Movies are just like books, they are stories, and so I feel like they're as relevant to the craft of writing as anything else. Here is the IMDb page for it - www.imdb.com/title/tt6149936/ . It's definitely not a movie that I recommend. I don't really even like horror, but sometimes I'll see a cover/dvd case, combined with a title and think, "ooh, I wanna see that."
I like a lot of the themes that are discussed in horror, but I dislike evil for evil sake. I want an actual reason for the evil. I also prefer nuance, and shades of grey, and a way for things to actually turn out good. I also don't like getting grossed out with blood and guts and stuff. I stay away from all torture porn stuff. But sometimes I can really get into a good psychological horror story, especially one with ghosts.
What I liked about The Lullaby is that it was set in South Africa and I assume had a South African cast. I enjoy seeing stories told from different perspectives.
It is an all white cast though, so the perspective wasn't that different. I know almost nothing about South Africa though, so it was still a differentish perspective. I will spoiler tag the rest of this in case anyone reading this wants to watch it first.
Major Trigger Warning for anyone sensitive to violence against women and children.
The story is set in this tiny village called Eden Rock. There is a real Eden Rock in SA, but I don't know if this town and the forest estate are supposed to be the same place or not. I got the vibe it was this creepy, oppressive, little town, and I'm going to assume the real place isn't like that. So the movie obviously used creative license to give the story that all important atmosphere. Back in 1901, during "The Second Boer War" British soldiers occupied the village and raped the local women. One of the women got pregnant and this creepy, evil, priest-like dude murdered her baby by popping off it's head. It was extremely gruesome and the way the movie opens!
The scene made me feel like I was watching a Puritan story set in 1600s Massachusetts, so I'm not sure if this is what it was really like in SA in 1901, or again if the filmmakers were simply trying to be horrible and shocking. Hopefully the latter. I'm sure there are religious orders today that would still do something like that, since women's right and children's rights are still not respected in many parts of the world. And some religious stripes will never crawl out of the dark ages. So when you think about it like that, it makes the story that much more horrifying.
You could interpret the movie in a few different ways. One way is that it's a story showing the horrors of post-partum depression, and how dangerous it can be when no one takes the mother seriously. Her doctor, certainly doesn't seem that concerned. If he had realized how much she was suffering her mother and the creepy guy who had a crush on her wouldn't be dead. It's clear that mental illness ran in her family. Her father killed himself, and the mother definitely had issues herself. She was this extremely angry, controlling, emotionally repressed woman, who had done her best to raise a daughter on her own. She didn't have any support, as far as I could tell. Unless you count the creepy psychiatrist who had been lusting after her for all these years. The guy was a total quack, but since they lived in such a teeny tiny village, he's prolly all they had. So you could also see the story as showing the immense need for a better mental healthcare system.
Or you could see the movie as a story of a mother so distraught by the murder of her baby that her spirit got trapped there in that forest where the murder occurred. When Chloe was raped and impregnated in that same place, the mother's spirit was awakened. She attached herself to Chloe, and tried to help her get vengeance on the man who wronged her, and to save her baby's soul by killing it, the way that her baby was saved so long ago.
If we were going with "it actually was a spirit" then I would write it that Chloe realized what was going on, and I'd have her fight off the possession and help the ghost mother find peace and go into the light to be with her baby again. Because I like happy endings. I know this is the horror forum, and happy endings are rare in horror, but that's my preferred ending anyway.
I don't know if they were purposely saying Chloe was a slut whore who should have stayed home and saved herself for the creepy dude who deigned to be obsessed with her, or if they were trying to expose this kind of thinking as bad and wrong. The creepy dude goes get murdered during a flashback Chloe has to the rape. So I could look at it as he was being punished for blaming her for being assaulted. I like that viewpoint, so I'll go with it.
The sexual assault was basically just used as a cheap plot point. No one in the movie showed Chloe any sympathy or empathy, and that alone was enough to send her spiraling into a deep depression and also make her vulnerable to dark energies. I think this story could actually have been very good if it had been told better. If the true horror of the event, and her pain, and the spirit mother's pain was truly felt and worked through, and if the two of them could have found a way to heal. That would make for a lovely, dark, and painful story. It definitely wouldn't be a great horror story. Probably literary women's fiction.
The scene made me feel like I was watching a Puritan story set in 1600s Massachusetts, so I'm not sure if this is what it was really like in SA in 1901, or again if the filmmakers were simply trying to be horrible and shocking. Hopefully the latter. I'm sure there are religious orders today that would still do something like that, since women's right and children's rights are still not respected in many parts of the world. And some religious stripes will never crawl out of the dark ages. So when you think about it like that, it makes the story that much more horrifying.
You could interpret the movie in a few different ways. One way is that it's a story showing the horrors of post-partum depression, and how dangerous it can be when no one takes the mother seriously. Her doctor, certainly doesn't seem that concerned. If he had realized how much she was suffering her mother and the creepy guy who had a crush on her wouldn't be dead. It's clear that mental illness ran in her family. Her father killed himself, and the mother definitely had issues herself. She was this extremely angry, controlling, emotionally repressed woman, who had done her best to raise a daughter on her own. She didn't have any support, as far as I could tell. Unless you count the creepy psychiatrist who had been lusting after her for all these years. The guy was a total quack, but since they lived in such a teeny tiny village, he's prolly all they had. So you could also see the story as showing the immense need for a better mental healthcare system.
Or you could see the movie as a story of a mother so distraught by the murder of her baby that her spirit got trapped there in that forest where the murder occurred. When Chloe was raped and impregnated in that same place, the mother's spirit was awakened. She attached herself to Chloe, and tried to help her get vengeance on the man who wronged her, and to save her baby's soul by killing it, the way that her baby was saved so long ago.
If we were going with "it actually was a spirit" then I would write it that Chloe realized what was going on, and I'd have her fight off the possession and help the ghost mother find peace and go into the light to be with her baby again. Because I like happy endings. I know this is the horror forum, and happy endings are rare in horror, but that's my preferred ending anyway.
I don't know if they were purposely saying Chloe was a slut whore who should have stayed home and saved herself for the creepy dude who deigned to be obsessed with her, or if they were trying to expose this kind of thinking as bad and wrong. The creepy dude goes get murdered during a flashback Chloe has to the rape. So I could look at it as he was being punished for blaming her for being assaulted. I like that viewpoint, so I'll go with it.
The sexual assault was basically just used as a cheap plot point. No one in the movie showed Chloe any sympathy or empathy, and that alone was enough to send her spiraling into a deep depression and also make her vulnerable to dark energies. I think this story could actually have been very good if it had been told better. If the true horror of the event, and her pain, and the spirit mother's pain was truly felt and worked through, and if the two of them could have found a way to heal. That would make for a lovely, dark, and painful story. It definitely wouldn't be a great horror story. Probably literary women's fiction.
