The most recent film in the Top 1000, opening just after They Shoot Zombies made their annual update, which means this will probably go up even higher next Spring. Right now, discussion over the film is starting to die down as its box office glides past $300 million. I’ve been onto Curry Barker since Milk & Serial (currently in the 600s), and have also watched his short films, The Chair and Warnings. Still, I didn’t know what he was capable of or how far he would push things. The film walks a nice balance of dark and fun, but at a definite point the darkness wins out, and by the end of this, I could easily see him re-energizing the Texas Chainsaw franchise.
If I started getting into the debates, I’d probably never stop writing this post. Stepping back from it, I enjoyed observing how the film was marketed as a psycho girlfriend story, then once people saw the film you learned that Nikki is as much the victim as the unstable monster. Quickly, the knives turned onto Bear, whose own moral weaknesses destroy Nikki, himself and a others. Currently, I see people defending Bear as someone who never expected his novelty toy to work. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Inde Navarrette, who’s become an instant star with her tightrope performance. What makes this deeper than a well-executed “monkeys paw” story is the definite feeling that the real Nikki is always somewhere in there, forced to act against her will. This isn’t just the guy’s story of regretting what you wish for, we’ve seen that before. It’s her story as she wrestles with her own sanity, increasingly finding herself unable to resist what she doesn’t want to do.
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