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Baddie: The French!

Lesson: If someone is murdering your friends and you don’t know who the murderer is, it’s probably you. OR IS IT.

I KNOW, it’s November. Technically. I actually scheduled this thing to post at 11:59 so it would count for Octoberween, because, y’know, I like Octoberween. I’m gonna miss it. Next week, we return to normal, non-purposefully-Australian movies. But this week…this week we stick to the Outback. I chose “Needle” knowing full well that it might be a torture movie. I’m so brave. 

The film opens with a menacing phone call and a horrific death, voodoo-doll style (from afar). Solid start. Cut to the remaining family of the aforementioned murdered person, now in college, approximately two years after the incident. There are two brothers, not speaking. One possibly a police officer, the other a student. An heirloom has been discovered and given to the younger brother (the student), and he hasn’t the foggiest what to do with it. I’m sure it murders people.

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We’re quick to learn that the box is inscribed, ‘Vaudou de Morte’. I actually researched a bit about voodoo, or vodou, for an art piece that never came to fruition, and as some may or may not know, a lot of the terminology is French, or Creole, or Haitian, derived and the saints have Catholic counterparts/influence. This box may be from the Theater of Horrors in Paris, and, I’m guessing, has roots in some sort of macabre performances. It also appears to be photo based, and our charming hero Ben happens to have a group picture on his camera. Yay. The box also gets stolen fairly promptly. Double yay.

It’s not long until the first murder. It also appears that the box may involve the user’s own blood, then the user must inflict the same wounds on their own skin, with the needle, to affect the subject. So, dragging a needle over your arm makes the victim’s arm split open, etc. That being said, the second victim uses a doll, which makes the limbs spontaneously snapping off more effective.

Honestly, around the hour mark, it starts to get a little hokey. However, it soon becomes evident that either I’m a little blind, or the movie doesn’t explain itself very well. The man at the beginning who dies is not their dad. Their dad dies in an actual car crash. I had assumed the entire time that ‘car crash’ was code for ‘your dad died weird and we can’t explain it’. So, the revenge plot of the stolen box makes a tiny bit more sense now.

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Duuuuh nuh. Duuuuh nuh. Duhnuhduhnuhduhnuhduhnuh MURDERRRRRR

Now, this is Australian horror, so, with forty minutes left in the film and only two people dead, the brothers figure out what’s going on, although they don’t know who stole the box yet. Color me impressed.

My favorite things about this movie:

Ben’s cluelessness when it comes to his super hot friend Mary. He does not understand that she has a crush on him, and is completely oblivious when she flirts. And, when all three of them are kidnapped, he sees Mary, then asks how his brother is doing instead.

Ben’s stupid photography joke when his photographer brother gets shot (with a gun) in the leg.

The fact that the villain is an insane woman motivated by familial grief.

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The makeup/SFX.

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Definitely a good movie to check out if you have the time. A little long, maybe, but generally enjoyable!

Feel free to tweet me any questions, recommendations, comments, compliments, whatever! Really, I just like the attention.