My thoughts SPOILERS!

[thunder]

Is it allowed to say, it’s not my favourite? It wasn’t so scary, I thought. Which is good for me, because I freak out easily…
I did like the winter setting, and music, Kind of added to the cold environment, and the cold relationships between the people in the story. And the acting was very good, I thought.

I had a couple of problems. First of all: Teen age movie set in “today”. Where are the smart phones, and social media? Bullying at that age (late teen ager) isn’t so obvious, they are a lot smarter than that. If you trip up people in the hall or drag them across the ice while they scream in pain in front of everyone, you’ll get in trouble. And if that happpened... No one filmed it? It would have been broad casted all over the internett within minutes.

Second of all: There were no characters I cared about. I felt sorry for her mother, though. Bad husband, and then daughter turns into a mass murderer. I felt sorry for Maria in the beginning, but not when she started killing people off. They deserved some pay back, but seriously, killing them off? Jason’s father character was sort of sold in as “the villain”, but he is one of the more sympathetic characters in this movie. And that is saying something, I haven’t forgotten he scene where he is going to comfort his daughter by telling her how he’s going to cut her open and sew her back together again. But you kind of get his good intentions, even if they are messed up intentions.

I have to confess, though... I've seen it twice already, so I guess it's not too bad.

[Helen8]

OK, thunder. How do you define what happened to Maria with Airam?

My theory is a result of the opening sequence I call Thilla in Manilla (Ali and Frazier prizefight) between the two fetuses. When it's revealed later on in the film that the twin was put down because she was "deformed," I immediately identified Maria as the aggressive fetus and that since twins share the womb for 9 months and are always together bonding afterwards, once Maria saw the sonogram picture, she realized she was a twin. That's when Airam first appears "in the mirror." And, the psychotic break occurred. Maria went back to being aggressive and named herself the opposite, Airam. She was now protecting herself (Maria, who she saw as passive), and "took care of" everyone who was hurting her; Daddy included.

I thought there was a bit too much nudity, but then that's me. India did an amazing job of playing both ends of the character's spectrum. Once I realized that Dr. Dan was a piece-of-work as a father—hypercritical of both mother and daughter—I had no trouble thinking of him as a villain, so it was only a matter of time he got his comeuppance. Mira Sorvino was sympathetic as the mother.

The ending "spin" scene was purposely ambiguous (according to Bernstein). I saw it as the mother's wishful thinking that she "had" her two girls together. After all, it's her point of view. She is looking at the reflection in the mirrored ceiling, so in her fragile mind she got her dead twin back.

As far as being scary, the hockey-stick hobbling, shooting the boyfriend, chasing her girlfriend into a wall, and the throat slicing were not scary . . . just very disturbing to watch. I'd rank it as a lesser Jason movie.

[thunder]

OK, thunder. How do you define what happened to Maria with Airam?

I think I see it as a psychological thing. Like a split personality, kind of situation... or more of a lasting psychosis. Finding out about the twin was pushing her over the edge because she was under so much pressure to begin with.

My problem with this is that I couldn't see any reason within the story that Maria would react this way. Unless, of course that there is some psychiatric issue to begin with. But they didn't get into that. Her teen age life isn't happy, but a lot of teen agers has distant parents and feel alone and alienated. I don't really see her situation to be anything out of the ordinary. It could definitely have been better, but it could have been a lot worse too. So then when she goes crazy and starts to kill people off, it just seems extremely exaggerated. Her friend is not a very good friend, but doesn't deserve to die. Her father is a bad father, but he doesn't deserve to die either. Where did the rage come from? I kind of agree with one of the reviewers saying she's fed up by seeing privileged teen agers being depicted as victims.

Assaf Bernstein sad that he had started writing this 20 years ago, and it explains how teen age life was depicted in this. A lot has happened in 20 years. In the beginning, I wondered if this was set in the 80's og 90's, but the style didn't fit with that. And then I saw the adults characters use smart phones, so it's clearly set in today, but completely miss the aspects of today's teen age culture. Some issues are time less, but they work different today, because society, expectations and how we communicate has changed. So it didn't feel realistic, and the issues weren't addressed in a very relevant way.

So... I agree with you that this is one of Jason's lesser films. Reading through my post here, I probably seem more negative than I am, but if I'm going to address my problems with this movie, this is how it goes.

[Hilary the Touched]

Haven't seen the movie, don't know if I will now, but I'm delighted you liked Winnipeg.

[Helen8]

Rethink that, Miss Hils.

[thunder]

It's not too bad, I just go a bit annoyed at teen-age movies that can't get "teen-age" right. A side effect of being a high school teacher...

[Helen8]

Yeah. A high-school teacher in Norway, where you're just dealing with the effects of hormones. I assume that that's 180° from high schoolers here.

[thunder]

We have a bit more than "just hormones" over here as well...

[Helen8]

Okay. I shouldn't just assume what I don't know.

[thunder]

If you only knew....

[Helen8]

Teachers have the best and the hardest jobs, shaping our children and putting up with them while doing it.

[thunder]

Well, we get our share of drama, to put it that way.

[Marie]

Oh there is drama everywhere but I think you Teachers get more than your fair share - especially High School teachers - what with teen agers raging hormones, video games, cell phones, social media and parents who just know their child is better than you graded them - or would never do anything wrong. It's a total wonder any of you stay in the profession. My brother who taught at the Coast Guard Academy lasted one year as a high school math teacher - then he went back to the USCG Academy.

[thunder]

There's a lot of drama, but also a lot of amazing impressive young people that I have the privilige getting to know, and to see them grow into young adults. I can't think of another thing I would like to do for a living. There's a lot more positive than negative.

[Marie]

Thank goodness there are people like you (and my High School History teacher!!)