This is Why Some People Don't Want Kids

Film: Case 39
Format: DVD from personal collection on basement television.

The idea of a story about an evil child is hardly new in the movie business. Orphan, The Other, The Good Son, The Bad Seed, The Omen and plenty more have been enough to establish something of a subgenre and given us a good number of expectations. There are basically two ways this movie can go. One is that we’re led to believe that there is an evil child who turns out to be the victim of evil adults. The second is that we’re led to believe that there is an evil child who is actually evil. The big turn in this movie is always when we find out which of the two movies we’re in. In Case 39, this happens pretty early.

We’re introduced to Emily (Renée Zellweger), a social worker who deals with children in troubled situations. Up to her eyeballs with 38 cases, her boss Wayne (Adrian Lester) assigns her a 39th case, that of Lillith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland), a 10-year-old girl whose grades have suddenly slipped and who shows some signs of abuse from her parents. Emily believes that bad things are going on in the house and when she receives a panicked call from Lillith, she heads to the house with her cop friend Mike (Ian McShane). What she discovers is Lillith’s parents trying to kill her in the oven.

Space Adaptation Syndrome

Film: Pandorum
Format: DVD from personal collection on basement television.

Pandorum is one of those movies where I don’t exactly know where to start on breaking down the plot. It goes in a lot of directions initially, and it doesn’t always make a great deal of sense in the big picture. That said, I rather enjoyed this movie more than I expected to. In my head, I think I got this mixed up with Primer for some reason, and I wasn’t really that excited about watching another time travel movie after seeing both Looper and Triangle recently.

Anyway, Pandorum is a grimy outer space science fiction movie with a deep horror streak. We start with Bower (Ben Foster) waking up from long-term stasis and freeing himself. It takes him a little time to realize who he is and what is going on. Evidently, in the world of Pandorum being in hypersleep means temporary amnesia for any number of things, including name, location, and purpose. Eventually, Bower figures out that he is a part of the flight crew of a ship called Elysium and that things aren’t going well.