Have you seen "The Boy"? Its available on Amazon Prime. It's a fairly unique tale, I thought, but I don't know you may
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darkholefilms — 10 years ago(September 09, 2015 12:33 PM)
This film made me feel disgusted, was settling into a really nice horror film and then it went all sadomasochist on us. Left me cold and empty, not sure this is what my girlfriend and I wanted
The ending was horrific. The trailer misleading. Won't be recommending it to anyone that's for sure. Now having said that, if they had thought - as film-makers, to somehow subvert the notion of violence enacted upon the mother, a la Haneke's Funny Games, to question our understanding of what violence is, it would have been a tremendous film. But they opted for the something more banal, simply unforgivable choices when your first two acts are so wonderfully executed.
What a disturbing, horrible film this was.
Disappointing. -
hadok — 10 years ago(September 10, 2015 06:34 AM)
Good movie yes but it took me maybe 20 minutes to figure out the twist. As TS states, good movie, good ending but we've seen it a million times already so it would have been refreshing with an ending that wasn't easy to figure out.
Some other commenter said sarcastically that "you consider it ruined because the movie turned out to be really realistic and you were probably expecting some kind of grand Hollywood exposition where the spooky ghosts and special effects kick in. "
Well, to be fair I would have to say that this type of clich ending IS Hollywood. To some it seems that having opinions on non-English speaking movies automatically turns you into a Michael Bay/Hollywood lover. -
Reno — 10 years ago(September 18, 2015 04:46 PM)
I don't agree with the original post.
Usually (just saying) horror movies will have the twists only at the end (third act),
but this film had in the fist act itself.
People think they figured it out early, that's what the writer wanted, coz he expect the viewers to keep guessing throughout the watch. But it is not going to deliver one and that is the twist in filmmaking, not in the film.
If the viewer is a tough guy,he'll defend his honour of what this movie made him look like a fool.
But some people won't consider opening hint as a twist, they deny it and anticipates one in the conclusion section like this OP writer wanted.
You better know what you want to do before somebody knows it for you
-The Astronaut Farmer -
zombieDANCE — 10 years ago(October 14, 2015 02:35 PM)
I kind of agree. There is absolutely no "twist" in this movie. It is a slow reveal in the FIRST ACT. Halfway through, the story does shift, and that can be jarring, but twist? No. People were expecting supernatural Horror and got psychological. It's better to go into movies like this blind, and I'm glad I did.
"You got big fat titties, and I like to kill babies. Unborn babies!" -
carjones51 — 9 years ago(July 30, 2016 08:30 AM)
But, clearly, some ppl were surprised at the end if you read some posts. Some didn't figure out the twist until the mother flat out stated it, which she did towards the end of the movie. Some are saying they heard gasps in their theatres when the mother reveals the "twist."
I definitely think the "twist" was meant to be a genuine twist or else the mother would have said something about Lukas being dead when her other kid first asks her why she didn't make him any food.
This movie didn't work for me on any level. Perhaps if I hadn't figured out the "twist" as early as I did, I might have had a better viewing experience. -
kanelgifflen-871-898321 — 10 years ago(October 16, 2015 03:24 PM)
I have seen way to many movies with the schizo-twist.. after the breakfest scene I knew the plot-twist and everything just became a drawnout snoozefest with no surprises.. movie was boring as beep..
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carjones51 — 9 years ago(July 30, 2016 08:32 AM)
Yep! This is exactly how I felt too.
After the breakfast scene, the twist was clear to me. From there, I was wondering what else would happen, and if there was anything to the whole "You're not our mother" thing. Sadly, there was nothing else. Just a psychotic kid. -
georgegates — 10 years ago(October 17, 2015 02:51 AM)
The ending was great. The revelation that the kids are one and the same should have been at the bath tub scene for most. Pretty much in the middle of the movie.
Where both, identical looking kids have the same nose-bleed at the same location with the same amount of blood.
What was cool in the ending was the shift of a heartless mother towards a struggling mum who was in over her head with a mentally ill kid - in addition to the accident.
-==-
Life's too short for mediocrity
Best shows:
http://www.imdb.com/list/n9h_caKA-ZU/ -
radb707 — 10 years ago(October 18, 2015 01:48 AM)
I'm with you. People are so butthurt that they saw the twist coming, and really it telegraphed it in the first few minutes. The twist was never the point. I figured it out early on and I was more interested in the mom's story. They made a really strong point that she was not their mom and if I'm disappointed it's because that plotline wasn't followed through. Sure, maybe she's just a heartless mom, who went through an accident, had her mole removed, had a friend who dressed and looked just like her, and forgot what her kid's favorite song was. You can't just throw all that beep at me, and be like nah, it was really the mom bc she knows one fact about the accident. So if the movie is disappointing to me, that's why, not because I figured out the truth about the kids early.
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Lemony82 — 10 years ago(October 19, 2015 03:38 PM)
I respect every opinion in this board, but I have to agree with the original poster. Having seen Seidl's movies before this one led me to think, erroneously, that Ich Seh Ich Seh would be similar to his, static shots and nice photography apart.
The third act killed it for me, for a lot of reasons.
I'll start from the premise. Two children think their mother has been substituted by an imposter. Ok, not that original, but it may work beautifully.
Plenty of rich things to work out of this. Themes about identity, abandonment, mother-son relationship, childhood phobias, who knows.
Their mother returns, apparently from a cosmetic surgery operation, and it makes me wonder; did this mother left their children alone just to get her face redone? The movie even implies that this operation could have been done out of luxury, of selfishness, especially with that scene where The Mother looks at herself in the mirror, touching her breasts, looking at her body.
The forcedly ambiguous tone of the movie, which basically denies the audience any kind of information about plot and characters and as such forces us to try and come up with theories and interpretations, doesn't help.
Here we have very simple elements and characters without a past. So, it felt good for the first two acts to start thinking.
Is it all metaphor? Was this real or imagined?
Then, turns out, none such game was ever being played in the plot. The mother, the accident, the bandages.
It's all about a past tragedy, that's never really hinted at in no way and the entire thing we've made up in our minds, it's useless.
The movie left us walking into the dark and then pulled out extreme violence connected to a past tragedy we've known nothing about for most of the time.
The first hour seems only to be about living an eerie experience through the eyes of a child and the last 20 minutes seem to be about "Oh. That's what happens when you don't.solveermbad things that happened." The kid goes beep crazy and kills the mother. Yeah. That left me thinking about grief and tragedy a lot.
What were they trying to talk about? That even the strongest bonds can be destroyed by grief? That violence only creates more violence? That if you've got issues, you don't wanna put them on your kid unless you want him to kill you?
I'm fine with all this, but then, if you wanna make a strong point then don't stay silent for one hour before actually saying what's going on.
Either you go all the way ambiguous or you start saying things clearly from the beginning.
And don't get me started on the "We're dead but everything is fine and now we're happy again!!
:-)" ending. -
wrlord2001 — 10 years ago(October 31, 2015 12:31 AM)
I'll start from the premise. Two children think their mother has been substituted by an imposter.
That's not the premise. By the time they even start saying that, it's already obvious that Lukas is a figment of the boy's imagination. From there, it just unrolled the only way it could. -
Road_Reader — 10 years ago(December 17, 2015 09:51 AM)
I agree. Everybody who pays close attention from the beginning will question Lucas existence right after they met their mother, then the game and the breakfast. After you realize there's something wrong with their interaction, the guessing become more interesting. I come up with few things during watching the movie. Firstly, of course Lucas is Elias' imagination. Then, I started to think may be Lucas is real but the mother and Elias not. The mother mystery make the movie become more interesting and my mind always rolling the whole time to come up with every theory I could of what is actually happening in the house.
In the end, I conclude that Lucas is a ghost in the movie who tried to confuse Elias mind about their real mother. Lucas wanted her mother back and trapped her mother in the ghost world (whatever you can called it). He need Elias to kill her by doing some ritual. The fire, candles, or may be the dead cat. In the end, they Lucas get the mother. Since Elias could see Lucas, there's no problem for him to see his dead mother's spirit.
I Hate My Signature -
Ringworm7 — 9 years ago(May 10, 2016 12:23 PM)
That
one twin died
isn't the real plot twist, though. If you can, please watch the film again, and try to figure out which twin is the "bad twin." Who is really cruel, torturous? Who lights insects with a magnifying glass? And was there really an accident? Or did
Elias put Lukas down by drowning him? He's the one that put the dead cat "drowned" in the terrarium where his mother would see it, and she doesn't act surprised at all.
On second viewing I had to pay much closer attention to who was who, and it's just as disturbing. -
jean-gove — 9 years ago(July 03, 2016 02:17 AM)
I immediately caught on to the fact that one of the brothers was somehow not real very early on, when Mother wasn't acknowledging the second twin at all, and then the fact that the second twin never actually speaks to anyone, but whispers to his brother what he wants to say, and never touches anything in front of others, that continued to confirm it until the end.
I'm not sure the second twin is a ghost however - why not a psychotic figment of the first twin's imagination? -
ashingtray — 9 years ago(October 09, 2016 11:32 AM)
This movie was never about the twist that the other boy is dead.
The Director did made it obvious at the first place only the brother could see the brother and not anyone else. It was obvious in most shots, so it's obvious the Director wasn't hiding it.
The power of the movie OR if you call it the Twist is that the dead brother appears to be a real Ghost, and not his imagination, and it is reveal at the final act dialogue that the mom was playing along at first to imagine the dead brother was still there, and that got the alive brother confused, and thus he was convinced that the mother was fake, who just had a plastic surgery, who you can tell from the plot reveal that she might have done it due to her insecurity after the divorce and as a not-so-famous tv personality. The "accident" they have been referring at the scene where the mom was talking with the police was indicating the death of the other son.
This is one of those rare movies where I hated watching it at first, because I thought the same, why was it so obvious that the brother is not real, and I surely thought that the rest of the movie was boring because I already knew the twist.
But then i changed my mind at the end, when the movie reveal that Ghost are real, with the wide shot of the mom's spirit walking out from the house, thus the dead brother was real as a "ghost" and not an imagination of the alive brother.
I thought this was unique and brilliant, a movie where I thought I hate, but then changed my mind at the very end, and thought it was a brilliant film. Very rare such feeling I have for a film, thus I think this film is pretty innovative and unique on it's own. Definitely worth more than 6.7 stars! I give it an 8 atleast! -
kinwardog — 9 years ago(October 24, 2016 11:18 PM)
Going to have to agree with you here. I see where they were going with the mother. It is easy to see why the boys might resent the real mother and would rather hold onto to their idealistic image of her instead.
The problem is that eerie mood and development gets thrown out the window when they try to do another variation of "Alice Sweet Alice" in the third act. I was kindof hoping that the mother really was a psychopathic "doppleganger". The lack of the dad and her going away for surgery like that (considering how wealthy and somewhat famous she was) really didn't make sense to me. I mean, she just lost one son; yet, she lets her obviously troubled boy roam free on his own. Even if she was a narcissistic and negligent mother, she still had the money and means to hire a nanny at least, lol.
I think the film would have also benefited by substituting the red cross folks with the kids' grandparents. The grandparents could've played along with Elias by addressing Lukas, too. And also, the filmmakers could have used this opportunity to expand more on the backstory between the mother and kids. I think it was important to humanize the characters a bit more in order for the violent ending to resonate. The ending had the potential to be a massive gut punch. It went for the shock instead, which I think hindered the ending's effectiveness.