![]() ![]() I'm going to check the box indicating that this review contains spoilers, just to be safe, though I am not by any means spilling all the beans here. I mean the more mundane actions of people within the story behaving in an annoyingly unrealistic way. ![]() In short, the script mostly defies reality rather than attempting to support it To be clear, I don't mean the reality of the supernatural elements of the story. Also, various characters seem to pop up out of nowhere for no logical reason and always just in time to create a dramatic effect. In all these examples (and plenty more), the drastic changes are made as a light switch being turned on or off rather than with some sort of revelation leading to the 180 degree turn-about in attitude. Ditto for the older boy who suddenly switches from being a menacing character in Rufus' life to becoming a heartthrob for him. Likewise, the mother of Rufus' cross-street crush who goes from warning Rufus to stay away from her daughter to encouraging her daughter to "go after him", again for no apparent reason for this change of heart. I'm talking about the attitudes switching back and forth from scene to scene for no apparent reason. ![]() And I'm not talking about a story arc wherein attitudes change. Her husband bounces back and forth between wanting to be a father to Rufus to expressing contempt or impatience with him. Rufus can sleep in her dead son's room and wear his old clothes but she has a meltdown when she sees him using her son's baseball glove. Rufus' "adoptive" mother abruptly changes from pleading not to let him stay the night to becoming a nurturing she-bear to protect him. In one scene, a character might beat another with a pipe and in the next scene they're walking together calmly discussing the situation. Worse, more often than not, the characters displayed wild mood swings between scenes. It drew attention to the filming process in that you could fully sense the crew setting up the shot, the cast members taking their positions and getting themselves into character, the director saying, "Action", and then the story starts up again. Nearly every scene was a stand-alone snippet with very little context. Pretty good plot and watchable characters and acting. I kept waiting for some action and some reason to be interested in Rufus but he lets you down including an ending to the movie that is both improbable and corny. His mystery or supernatural nature is not enough to hold one's attention. I suppose you could say he is kind of a symbol for his generation: epicene, scrawny, scruffy, hangdog with no point or purpose in life, doing nothing except having a little dull sex in a small town. Once seen as purely evil characters who fully justified their flaming ends (they were usually burned up with dawn's early light), I suppose the dilution of moral categories which has been the result of our relativistic, therapeutic culture, has also lead to the "destigmatization" of the vampire archetype-to use academic mumbo jumbo. Such justification as there is occurs only because a genre of vampire movies has sprung up in which vampires are basically the good guys-oppressed minorities-who are misunderstood. Why? He does commit some murders but we are supposed to see them as justified. Nothing happens that is, but the perambulations of a very weird young man who is "sort of" a vampire but most of the time is a downcast boy looking for sympathy. I clicked the spoiler box because, basically nothing happens in this movie and some may consider that in itself to be a spoiler. ![]()
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