Well...
it's hard to describe the tone or theme of this film. A family at
Christmas get together one last time before the Matriarch (played by Dee
Wallace) sells the family home and heads off on trip through Europe.
Their gathering is interrupted by the arrival of a "mysterious" stranger
who offers a reminder on a terrible deed done some twenty
years previous.
Okay, it's hard to not spoil the film when it pretty much lays it on so thick in the beginning. An aborted fetus is saved from a clinic and returns to his mother after twenty years. Initially he hopes to rediscover the family he's lost, but he quickly goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. He roars and he rampages and the kills are brilliantly bloody- but the ultimate payoff seems a bit short.
And that's why the film ultimately feels a bit mixed on the delivery. The kills feel like a final punchline to a satirical expression with a pro-life message. But the melodrama plays so serious that it's hard to tell if the film is meant to be humorous or deadly serious. Ultimately, the film is as offensive to pro-life advocates as it would be to pro-choice and I think it ultimately works in a truly fucked up way.
Okay, it's hard to not spoil the film when it pretty much lays it on so thick in the beginning. An aborted fetus is saved from a clinic and returns to his mother after twenty years. Initially he hopes to rediscover the family he's lost, but he quickly goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. He roars and he rampages and the kills are brilliantly bloody- but the ultimate payoff seems a bit short.
And that's why the film ultimately feels a bit mixed on the delivery. The kills feel like a final punchline to a satirical expression with a pro-life message. But the melodrama plays so serious that it's hard to tell if the film is meant to be humorous or deadly serious. Ultimately, the film is as offensive to pro-life advocates as it would be to pro-choice and I think it ultimately works in a truly fucked up way.
