5 Films That Are Horrifying If You Switch Their Perspectives
When viewed from the perspective of the main character, a movie usually provides us with a story about how someone becomes a better person, saves the world, gets both fast AND furious, etc. But all you have to do is slightly shift that perspective to a side character and you get two hours of absolute chaos. Here are five movies that become carnival rides of terror when you change the main character.
Cedric Diggory's Death Would Throw The Muggle World Into Panic
At the end of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, Cedric Diggory, played by everyone's 10th-grade boyfriend, Robert Pattinson, is killed by Voldemort's rat friend. The wizarding world is stunned by this. How did this happen? Is Voldemort really back? What part did Harry Potter play in this? But you know who would be even more stunned by this? Everyone else.
I'm no detective, but I have a feeling that this kid had nothing to do with it.
The place where Diggory lived has both a Muggle and a magical population. So when Diggory never came back from his last year at Hogwarts, there are people there who would probably get skeptical -- namely, everyone who didn't give a shit about He Who Shall Not Be Named. I don't know how much the Diggorys kept to themselves, but at some point, someone had to throw out the question "Hey, what happened to that teenage boy who used to live there? You know, the peculiar kid who didn't go to the same school as half of this town?"
And even if Cedric's father did follow the normal Muggle protocol when it comes to funeral services and whatnot, how did he explain that his son just came back from school dead? Does he research what kind of Muggle terminal illness would match up to the aftereffects of the Killing Curse? What would the medical examiner find? Because Diggory obviously didn't die in a car accident or because of an overdose. That dude is just dead. And "just dead" is the hardest kind of dead to accept when you don't know how to levitate brooms and stuff.
I don't know if the entire British government is going to buy the "He's just, like, reeeeaaally dead" excuse.
And if the medical examiner went to the local police because a boy in town was found suspiciously "just dead," what would the police find? Because either the father starts to carefully explain what a Hagrid is, or he and Hogwarts stonewall the hell out of any attempt to find out what/who killed the Diggory boy. How does Hogwarts deal with this? Just mind-wipe everybody who asks questions? Every Muggle who ever knew that Cedric existed? Also, how many times do they have to do this, considering that it's a school where 11-year-olds go to learn how to cast killer spells?
"So can you tell me what went down, Mr. Dumbledore?"
"Oh yeah, he was just found dead in the middle of a school function."
"What was the school function?"
"A big maze thing."
"Was he running through the maze when he was found dead?"
"Well, technically, he was outside the maze."
"So the maze didn't kill him?"
"Ummm, ummm ... AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The Family Man Is An Eternal Nightmare For The Wife
In The Family Man, Nicolas Cage, who has been 45 since he was 20, leaves Tea Leoni, who has been 22 since she was 25, to go take an internship in London.
Cage from 1672 to 2017.
They never reconnect, and he becomes a ruthless Wall Street mogul, making deals, having hookups, and ... generally being nice to the doormen in his life. However, this life isn't as morally beneficial as the one that he could've had with Tea, so he gets transported to the life he would've lived if he'd come back to her and settled down in New Jersey.
And then the horror begins.
Pinch yourself all you want. There's no waking up from this.
You see, The Family Man is not about Cage's character learning that you're better off staying with someone who loves you instead of following wealth. It's about the nightmare you experience when you have to put up with Nic Cage. As soon as he is transported to his alternate life, Leoni's character doesn't get a moment of respite. The movie constantly tricks you into thinking that this lull in Cage screaming about how awful his life is might be permanent, only to switch back to Cage yelling at his wife in public. The Family Man is The Walking Dead of romantic dramas. Five minutes go by without any random violence, and you're like, "Oh, that's nice. Optimism in a seemingly hopeless world. That's- Oh, Carl lost his fuckin' eye. Fooled again."
JUST LET HER EAT THE CAKE. GIVE HER THAT. JUST GIVE HER THAT.
What makes it worse is that Leoni is endlessly patient with a husband who is going through existential meltdown after existential meltdown. She's okay with it when he leaves on Christmas, forgets their anniversary, and forgets how to take care of the children. And she's even cool with it when he attempts to suddenly move them all back into the heart of NYC, ripping them away from their lives so that he can fulfill the part of his life that he's spent the last 70 minutes ranting about. And she doesn't even know that Cage was planning on cheating on her with her cleavagey friend. The Family Man attempts to tell a story about discovering what's truly best in life, when all it does is show the terror one faces when your husband loses his goddamn mind.
And when he's finally transported back to his real life, he immediately goes to find Leoni, who is moving to Paris. When being cryptic with her in her apartment doesn't work, he screams at her in the airport about the visions that he had of their lives in the alternate world. It's sweet if you're unaware that sometimes people stab other people.
The people in the audience who couldn't grasp the concept of "murder" were in tears.
She agrees to get coffee with him, and the movie ends. But the nightmare doesn't. Because not only is Leoni going to have to hear boatloads about this perfect side universe that Cage has experienced, but she's also going to be forced to live up to her self in that universe. Cage has an idea of what it would've been like if they'd stayed together, but there's no way he can know about what their lives will be like after years apart. Alternate Leoni had to worry about a Cage who might murder her and her children in the middle of the mall. Real Leoni has to worry about a Cage who is going to see that tattoo that she got after he originally left and say, "Hmm. Dream Tea didn't have that tattoo. Dream Tea was hoooottt."
The Detective In Hook Just Got An Unsolvable Murder Case
In Hook, Robin Williams' children are kidnapped when his family is visiting his wife's grandmother, Wendy, and a former Lost Boy, Tootles. He goes to Neverland to find them, is able to regain the magic of childhood of whatever, and saves his kids from Captain Hook. In the middle of all this, Phil Collins makes a cameo appearance as a British detective. It's a nice little scene, though it's a bummer that Collins doesn't break out into a performance of "That's All." Not even once. This absence takes the movie from a B to a C effort, if I can be honest.
However, despite what the movie may show you, this is not the end of Collins' story. No, Collins' investigation of a disappearance will soon become one of a possible kidnapping and case of senicide. If you don't know what that is, it's the technical term for "murdering an old person." I know this for the same reason Google now remembers that I once searched for "murdering an old person."
At the end of Hook, about three seconds after Robin Williams returns to the real world, Tootles gets sprinkled with some pixie dust and flies back to Neverland. The movie never really makes it clear about how old Tootles is, but from how he looks and acts, he's somewhere between 60 and Fuuuuck. So when he flies back to Neverland, it may well be the last trip that he ever takes. It's meant to be a magical moment, but this house and family were under investigation a day ago. Maybe give it a second before you think "Oh, my youth!" and leave everyone who's ever loved you forever.
"The password to my massive bank account is five-two-byeeeeeeeeeeee."
Detective Sussudio is going to come back, find that Williams and the kids have come back, but now the old man is nowhere to be found. He's an old guy, it's not like he could go anywhere substantial on his own. You can't tell the law, "Yeah, he just went to the grocers. He'll be back in a few ... days."
Williams' kids are going straight from being held hostage in Neverland to being held by the British police. And Williams, just having rediscovered his happy thought, is going to be the number-one suspect in the slaying of Tootles. How do you explain the concept of going to Neverland to a detective in a way that doesn't imply "He is in two separate suitcases under the porch"? I hope you enjoyed finding your childhood innocence, Peter Pan, because Hook 2 could only be a nice look into what happens when you're deemed complicit in the disappearance of an elderly person and your only defense is "Bangarang!"
"For the sake of this court, please refrain from answering a question with 'Rufio ... Rufio' again."
Two Men In The Mask Get Anally Assaulted And Have No Idea Why
In The Mask, a slightly likable Jim Carrey becomes a terribly unlikable Jim Carrey when he puts on a magic mask. The powers that the mask gives him are basically limitless, so naturally, the first thing he does is wreak havoc on the lives of the people around him. He scares his landlady, ruins a guy's car after he honks at Carrey for being in the middle of the road, and messes with some street thugs. On a side note, if this is what threatens your inner city at night, I think your war on crime might be going a little too well.
Maybe let crime run wild for a bit. Even things out.
And with the exception of a murderous crime boss at the end, most people aren't harmed by the actions of the Mask, unless you consider violent punning a reason for emotional trauma. Well, except for two guys. In the Mask universe, shooting at the Mask or trying to kill the Mask won't lead to much in the way of retribution. The highest offense in this world is charging a lot for a car repair. That is unforgivable. That demands blood.
Ass blood.
Oh, the Mask. You're so wacky.
At the beginning of the film, Carrey goes to pick up his car. The two mechanics obviously overcharge him for repairs that he doesn't need. Carrey just wanted an oil change, and these guys are putting in a new brake drum and transmission. Carrey is shocked by this -- so shocked that he remembers to come back and anally violate the men when he gains his Mask powers.
First of all, since this is the Mask's first night, these men had never heard of him before. So they have no frame of context when a green-faced man comes in, yells some wordplay, and goes to work on their butthole enhancements while comical "boops" and "boinks" occur. From their perspective, a complete stranger just busted into their shop and raped them with mufflers for no reason whatsoever.
Second, has Carrey never gone to an auto shop before? The majority that I've been to are run by nice people, but every once in a while, one tries to tell you "We were filling your engine coolant, and we decided to just go ahead and replace the entire front half of your vehicle. That'll be a billion in silver coins, please." I find it hard to believe that Carrey has lived to be about 30 in and has never once been screwed over by someone.
"They wanted me to pay $5 for a sandwich when I could buy one down the street for $4. So I slaughtered them all."
Third, I don't know if the qualitative shittiness of overcharging for an auto repair earns having a tailpipe shoved up your rectum. I don't want to spend too much time on the rights and wrongs of karmic retribution in The Mask, but maybe a solid pun-filled talking-to would've sufficed. These guys, no matter where they go for the rest of their lives, will never forget the time a lime-headed man shouted catchphrases at them as he shoved auto parts up their poop tunnels. That is true, everlasting misery.
Before I really begin, I just want to say that half of this movie is lit like goddamn Hellraiser.
It doesn't help that "If you build it, they will come" also sounds like a warning that Pinhead would give you.
In Field Of Dreams, Kevin Costner hears voices -- but, like, the cool kind. The kind that want him to nearly bankrupt his family and build a baseball field in their middle of their cornfield. Costner's wife is totally fine with it, his child is indifferent, his brother-in-law comes around eventually, and James Earl Jones only questions him for two minutes before being like "Ghosts of old baseball players showing up in Iowa? I'm in."
So this isn't a horror movie to any of the main cast. To everyone else in the world, however? It's an inexplicable supernatural phenomena that no one is safe from. And it possesses you without warning. Before the first act is over, Costner is already turning heads in town, and in the funniest shot in the movie, abandoning his family on Christmas to sit and watch his field.
"Your daughter is opening her pres-" "CAN'T A MAN WATCH FOR GHOSTS IN PEACE? CHRIST."
The town starts to treat his family like freaks, but what other choice do they have? Costner's wife gets into a heated argument about book burning during a PTA meeting, and rather than help, Kevin is scribbling "EASE HIS PAIN" on a piece of paper like he's Patrick Bateman. There are multiple cornfield whispers in Field Of Dreams, ranging from "If you build it, they will come" to "Go the distance," but the one that Costner gets stuck in his head while surrounded by the town's population of parents is "EASE HIS PAIN."
"Ease His Pain Hearts KC 4EVER"
It doesn't help matters that Costner convinces James Earl Jones to leave his home and come to Iowa with him. Jones does call his family when he finds out that his disappearance has made newspaper headlines, but that doesn't help much when he disappears into the magic zombie farm a few days later. He, a living dude, just vanishes into the corn. And Costner's family just watches, completely bored by the fact that the corn holds the dead and fucking evaporates the living. So even if everyone who sees the field is okay with the concept of Night of the Living Jocks, there's still the question of what happened to the body of a guy who wasn't a ghost until he went to that farm.
The movie ends with a bunch of cars pulling up to the field from all over America, presumably to save Costner from financial ruin. What were their lives before being mindlessly drawn to middle of nowhere in Iowa? They were eating dinner, or visiting friends, or taking a huge dump, when suddenly and telepathically they were drawn out and into their cars to drive thousands of miles to watch baseball. Will they wake up from that? Or are they caught in the same spell as Costner, forever meant to sit outside watching reincarnated sports figures?
How many bathrooms does Costner's house have? They're going to deplete the surrounding town's resources as soon as they get hungry.
And it isn't just the living world that has to deal with Costner abruptly building a sports arena and kidnapping an old black activist. The ghosts have to put up with Costner's bullshit, too. The main baseball player, played by a Ray Liotta who is like 90 percent cheeks, asks Costner "Is this heaven?" Meaning that he's either been trapped in Purgatory or Hell and has been suddenly released from the shackles of the Nether to play baseball in Costner Stadium. And how does Costner respond to these inquiries?
"It's Iowa."
"Fuckin' thanks, Kevin."
But what can this imply, other than that to these ghosts, Costner is God now? He has fashioned a paradise for them, and at the end of the day, they go back into the cornfields, back into Purgatory. They'll never experience the love that Costner feels with his family, or the outside world, because, as you see, they can't leave the baseball field. So any other hobbies or passions that they had in life can never be recreated. They are trapped on his property, doomed to eternally throw balls to each other while Costner gawks at them all day. It's the only Heaven they'll ever know -- at least until Costner gets bored and decides to try basketball.
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