People who remembered Macauly Culkin as the cute lil boy in the Home Alone series may find this movie a bit hard to digest. After all, who could imagine that someone would have the gall to create a horror/slasher movie around one of the cutest child that ever hit the big screen? But someone had that idea and that gives us this movie starring Macauly Culkin and Elijah Wood, which may still be one of the most disturbing movies that you would ever set your eyes on.
Cast:
- Macaulay Culkin as Henry Evans
- Elijah Wood as Mark Evans
- Wendy Crewson as Susan Evans
- David Morse as Jack Evans
- Daniel Hugh Kelly as Wallace Evans
- Jacqueline Brookes as Alice Davenport
- Quinn Culkin as Connie Evans
Plot:
Elijah Wood plays Mark, a young boy whose mother has recently passed away, and his father has to leave on an important business trip, which basically means that Mark must be kept somewhere where he can console himself after his mother's death. The family decides that the best place is at his uncle's, where he meets Henry Evans, a child that seems to be one of the many croaky, but gregarious kids that dot the neighborhood of any family residence today. It is only when Henry begins to believe that Mark is actually trying to, or at least going to usurp his place in the house, that he starts coming into his own terms, and changes the life of his family as well as Mark's forever.
Review:
The movie is a tightly written, enchanting script that is supported by some awesome acting by the supporting as well as the main cast. Of course, most of the screen space is captured by Macaulay and Elijah, and it is one of the first times that even when sheer evil is on the screen, you are more interested in the histronics of the protagonist. Elijah proves here that he always had more acting chops than Macaulay, but Macaulay took gives his best, scene to scene, dialogue to dialogue.
Again, the character of Henry Evans can be considered one of the most evil characters that have come into being on the big screen, simply because of his age and it can be seen from his first scene of violence, the Mr Highway man scene, that this guy is a born psychopath, with little chance of any kind of retribution.
As the climax builds up, the movie catches pace, something that it may have lagged behind in, especially during the psychologist scene, but it was an important plotpoint, of the movie made a veer around that arc where Mark was accused of being a nutcase finally.
