I needed a damn break from the Alien franchise. Something totally mindless and short. This is 82 minutes long, it’s on NetFlix. It’s only rated PG-13, but it does have Eric McCormack, star of Will and Grace. No, don’t leave yet. Stay, give him a chance.
Oh shit, this is a WWE Studios film? How the hell did I not know that? I wonder if it looked so bad that I blocked it out of memory? Oh well, I’m seeing this through. McCormack’s name is Terrance Shade, his wife is Leah, and he has 2 kids named Cynthia and Jake. She is cute in that Jenna Fischer way, like if you worked with her, you’d always wonder if banging her would be fun or dull as hell, and when you finally go for it she turns you down, so then you call her an ugly skank and spit on her…….sorry, but her acting is bad. Just saying, this is Lifetime quality. I can see why WWE picked this up. Looking at the cast, they made sure you include a token black guy named Deputy Dan…..really?
So here’s the lowdown: Terrance gets talked into bring his kids up to a cabin for a weekend, and he is the type of guy who prefers work than dealing with kids I guess. Apparently Terrance had this old dude stock up the cabin. The kids got some Andy Capp fries, yummm. And the girl got a toy rabbit that she is naming Jack the Ripper. Terrance, you have a neat daughter there. He’s driving, talking to his daughter in the front seat, and he hits something. He says shit and the boy starts saying “Dad said the sh word”. Really? You just got into somewhat of an accident, and that’s what you say? Dumb kid. He gets out and sees blood and follows the tracks in the snow. He hit a wolf. The wolf is really hurt. He was going to put it out of it’s misery, but couldn’t because it reminded him of hos his ex-wife died with the leg twitching. Soooo, you’re going to just let it die and freeze to death? What a dick.
The boy is annoying me, keeps talking about swearing. I guess they are trying to make the kids witty, but at what cost? Terrance got a toolbox and the boy asks “What’s in the box?” Thank you for that. So the old guy set up a Christmas tree and presents and shit. The kids want to open presents, but he wants to get a fire going, hot chocolate, blah blah blah. A door is moving, ohhhhh, scarrrry. This is the perfect type of garbage film that I needed. They go to the basement, and boom, they have achest full of food. The boy gets hot dogs, she gets mini pizzas, and he has mac n cheese and says that his kids are the only kids who don’t like Mac N Cheese. In all fairness, who the fuck likes frozen mac n cheese? Just wondering.
Terrance is having himself a nice drink of something and taking a pill with it. Always a wise decision sir. Flashback time. Mom does have a beautiful smile, I’ll give her that. He wakes up from his daydreaming, sees a person looking in his window, and it was most definitely a she. He goes to check outside and then wakes up in the morning. The handprints are still on the window. Time to build a snowman. He has no cell service. Sir, if you are worried, just fucking bounce from your ginormous mansion of a cabin. Cynthia finds one of those ceiling attic doors, and she thinks something is up there. Jake calls his dad and he says that he sees something outside in the trees. Snowball fight.
I hope this is like The Others and everybody is dead. Jake disappeared. He was just there. How the hell does that happen. Terrance see a side door close. He can’t open the door. He finally gets it open and Jake says that he didn’t lock the door. Why didn’t the kid say anything when his dad is panicking like that. Everybody is coming down with a cough. They see more movement. Before they leave, the kids have to pee. Oh, more PG13 flashbacks of the couple being flirty. He goes outside to start the car and suddenly it is now buried under 6 feet of snow. Seriously. The car won’t start and flashbacks to him giving his wife CPR. The kids see him yelling and punching the steering wheel. So the car got covered in 8 feet of snow in under 2 minutes? If you seen the layout, that couldn’t happen. I have like a sad disappointed look on my face. I hope this gets super cheesy soon.
So the kids want him to check under the beds. He says it’s time for lunch, and it’s now night time. He sees a figure outside. He checks the bathroom, and his pills are over the floor. He asks the kids and they deny accountability. These kids are dead, that’s my guess. Jake says “Is it coming for us?” Terrance is like, dude, what is your deal, and the girl asks dad why he is acting so weird. He says nothing is coming for them. They hear some knocking. He has them hide under the bed and he takes a lamp with him. On the plus side, we are halfway over. Whoever is still knowing and twisting the door.
And it was the old guy. Yeah, all that build-up, and it was the old guy. And he gets sucked outside into black nothingness.Wow, I don’t know if I’ve hit a new low, but this is bad. I hope the ending ties this together nicely because that’s about the only way it can redeem itself in my estimation. The kids come out, and are scurred. And the lights go out, obviously. Time to investigate the cellar and Cynthia is begging him to stop and get out of there. There are rats by the ice chest. Uhmmmm, who opened the freezer? Certainly not the rats.
He wants to go to the toolshed for nails, but the kids don’t want him going alone. This movie makes me want to have my taint uppercut by Mike Tyson. Now the toolshed is shaking vigorously. They see some eyes peering in. Oh, it must be the wind. Please, somebody say that. The door handle is turning.
OK, the best-case scenario for me officially is that he paid for all of this to be set up to scare his kid for Christmas and it’s all a big stunt. That would at least be hilarious. Anyway, he is now boarding up doors and whatnot. And the power goes out again, it’s time to light up candles. These kids are scared. He sits down his hammer and tells them to remind him that he left it there in case he needs it again. Is that a red herring?
“You know what they call sand for dessert? Desert.” Wow, really. The hammer and nails are gone now. Now Cynthia suggests that maybe they locked themselves inside with “it”. I bet Eric’s career really took off after this film. Flashback time. Nothing I care to describe. OK, I am getting more behind her hotness. I have a feeling I am going to either feel oblivious when the twist ending happens, or I’ll just be mad. Dad wakes up, kids are missing, but there’s the doll. He hears clanging in the kitchen. There is food all over. The pot is boiling over. The girl just sits there clanging her bowl of mac n cheese. He asks her why she won’t look at him, and she says because she doesn’t want to scare him, and now she has the weird face.
He hears Jake, and Jake is upstairs getting dragged away in the attic. More blurry distorted vision. I wonder if 10-year old me would have liked this or loathed it? I had simpler tastes at the time. A light comes on behind him, it scares him, he falls through the floor, sees his kids go with somebody to the shed. Of course, nobody is there. Now he sees somebody outside shoveling. Now there is a cross there. Time to go shoveling. He uncovers the rabbit. He goes back in the house yelling that “you can’t take them” and he is back in and the door closes on its own. The kids are in bed and now dad has keys to the old man’s truck. Both kids are sweating with fevers. The boy is shirtless, the girl is wearing a sweater. Wouldn’t you dress lighter, maybe not topless around your brother, but something.
Anyway, he drives the truck, and bumps from snowbank to snowbank and gets stuck. Cynthia is unconscious. Back to the house. Now Jake is passed out. Flashback of him saying that he is better than paying the bills, and she is better with the kids. She has a mom body. He hears glass drop. He checks in the kitchen, she dropped something. So she gets up, slips and bangs her head and neck on a counter. She starts shaking, now no breathing. He goes for CPR and nothing. So that’s how she died apparently. He goes to the bathroom and Jake asks dad to help him. Jake goes into a tub of ice and disappears. Then an arms reaches out and grabs daddy’s. Really, I couldn’t have picked a simple slasher.
Out of the bathroom, and now he sees Jake in another room. the door closes. He opens the door, no Jake, but the window is open. Now back in the fucking attic. The old guy is tied up up here. The old guys says that after the storm, he came up to check on him. Terrance is like, it’s still storming, but it’s beautiful. The old guy asks him not to leave him up there. Terrance walks into the bedroom, and there are his kids, in bed. Why don’t you go untie the dude? Or are you twisted? I think the kids are supposed to be dead, but I just saw her chest moving.
So I stopped writing. I have had like this solid-state of annoyed anger on my face for well over 10 minutes. The movie just ended. So I guess the dad had a fever and got his kid’s sick and blamed it on the old guy so he tied him up in the attic. But then a search time finds old man, and the ambulance takes the family and dad isn’t arrested. Dad had a horrible fever, booze, meds, and his wife having died. It was the wife’s spirit going around the house. (I originally had a link to an IMDB message board post that explained it here. Unfortunately, assholes can’t act right on message boards and posted stupid fucking shit and IMDB took away the boards.)
That means that I will offer this brief explanation. The whole family was quite ill and had fevers. Fever hallucinations explain the weird shit. The dad was protective because of his wife’s death. Yeah, that all just happened.
End Film
I don’t even know what to make of all of this.
Final Rating: 3.9
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