Abigail Pniowsky | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, I watched Little Girl’s Secret on Lifetime!

Why Was I Watching It?

Oh my God, everyone’s so depressed right now!

Or, actually, I should say that almost everyone I know is depressed right now. Obviously, the entire country is not depressed about Donald Trump winning the election because 60,000,000 people voted for him and I assume that they’re all happy. But the 60,000,0000 who voted against him are all pretty depressed right now. And, even worse, a lot of them are blaming my generation because not many of us voted and quite a few of us decided to vote third party.

My twitter timeline is seriously dark right now.

So, I figured that maybe I could cheer some people up by doing one of my famous Lifetime movie live tweets! Looking to help heal a divided nation, I watched Little Girl’s Secret on Lifetime and I tweeted every single thought that popped into my head. I don’t know if I saved the world but I certainly did increase my Klout score.

What Was It About?

That’s a good question! This film left me thoroughly confused, though that may be because I’m currently spending the weekend at my uncle’s and, as I tried to watch and tweet, I was also having to deal with 100 hyperactive cousins.

As far as I could tell, here’s what was happening in the movie: Jean (Maria Bello) is an artist. Dave (Callum Keith Rennie) is a writer. Molly (Sophie Nelisse) is Jean’s teenage daughter. Heather (Isabelle Nelisse) is Dave’s daughter. Michael (William Dickinson) is someone’s son. I guess he’s Molly’s brother but it wasn’t always easy to keep track of how everyone was related. He could have been Dave’s son and Heather’s brother. It really doesn’t matter.

Anyway, in 1982, this family leaves Baltimore and moves into a new home — a former church that’s been turned into a house! There’s a cemetery out back. There are ruins nearby. There’s a ghostly apparition that appears occasionally. Heather, who doesn’t feel like she belongs in this reconstructed family, is soon spending all of her time talking to the apparition.

Meanwhile, Molly is having nightmares and she keeps seeing birds forming ominous shapes in the sky. (It’s kinda like in Take Shelter.) She also starts to hear noises in the dark and see ominous shadows in unlit rooms. Why doesn’t anyone ever turn on the lights?

What Worked?

It had its share of creepy moments. Molly’s dreams were always well-executed.

What Did Not Work?

This movie was so damn dark! I don’t mean thematically. I mean that it was often hard to see what was going on in the movie because it never seemed to occur to anyone to turn on a light! I get the point, of course. This was a horror movie and everyone’s scared of the dark. But, after a little while, the constant darkness went from being atmospheric to just being silly.

Maria Bello, a terrific actress, was pretty much wasted in a minor role.

I was going to complain about the film’s pacing but I think that has more to do with the fact that it premiered on Lifetime than anything else. It’s difficult to maintain suspense when you’re having to stop every few minutes for a commercial break.

And finally, the plot itself was overly complicated and not particularly easy to follow.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I related to Molly in quite a few scenes. I was a rebellious 14 year-old too.

Lessons Learned

TURN ON THE DAMN LIGHTS!

Gentle Readers, it’s time to take a break from my stand alone film reviews and get something we can all sink our Teeth Into (you’ll get the pun later). It’s the Syfy Channel’s return to their awesomely dramatic roots. I will begin by writing that they delivered! If you dig suspense, good writing, and intricate plots, this show is not a bad bet.

Cold Open: A nightmare. Mike Painter, America’s Child Psychologist, is being interviewed by an asshole. The host pries deep into Mike’s private life and how his twin brother disappeared, several children were murdered in 1988, his blood type, and pictures of his colon – ok the last two were false, but the interviewer is a jerk. The host gives Mike water that has a dying fly in it. He puts Mike on the spot to talk to a creepy kid on the phone… who says “Why are you afraid to go home?” Then, the cameraman is a mannequin. What we got here is an unreliable narrator. We smash to the first of many odd smash cuts: a scarecrow on fire.

Mike heads home and briefly talks to his mom. She’s concerned that he is looking into the murders. He lies and says no. Mike goes to the Sheriff’s office and it’s a bit of exposition time, but not too bad. We learn that Mike’s buddy has become Sheriff and that the Sheriff’s son is a bit of a misfit. Mike wants the files on the murders. Mike dissembles that he’s writing a book about the murders. Sheriff wants to makes sure the book will be respectful and mentions that the victims were missing their teeth. YEECH! Sheriff is worried that his son is a weirdo and offers to trade files for some free psychoanalysis…. as you do. We also get a clue as to weirdness: there are reports of a person breaking into homes, but not stealing anything. Yikes!

Dinner Party: They discuss how the kids are watching too much tv. Mike checks in on Katie – the Sheriff’s daughter – who is watching a creepy puppet show. Mike mentions this when he returns to the dinner table. The show was called Candle Cove. The same show that they watched as children in 1988. It has a super creepy host called Jawbone – a puppet skeleton. The adults discuss the show some more and Mike leaves abruptly.

Mike has a flashback to bullies messing with his brother and he does nothing. They go home and the tv turns on and it’s the creepy puppet show Candle Cove. This show really ratchets up the creep factor. Seriously, you will be scared. We flashback back to Mike’s childhood room. He wakes and sees Jawbone in his room and Mike approaches him. When he touches Jawbone, he wakes in a field looking out at the woods. He notices a man in the woods as well.

Diner: Mike runs into his old English teacher and she quizzes him on grammar. We cut away to Katie’s room. She’s vanished. This show’s creep factor really goes up and up and up. A search party forms to look for Katie. Katie’s mom Jessica confronts Mike because she’s learned that he was not home for five hours the previous night. We learn that he was in psych ward a week ago. He begins to rave that it’s the show that somehow took Katie away. She rationally calls for help and he disappears. Mike is convinced that he can find Katie.

Mike goes to the Sheriff’s house and sees Dane the Sheriff’s son. Dane says, “She said you would ask” Taking a moment. This is becoming The Ring, Ju-on, When a Stranger Calls levels of creepy. Mike is convinced that he knows where Katie is. He flees into the woods towards a place called “Crow’s Nest”. We see a number of cutaways of burying bodies and hooks to the chest. Yep, hooks to the chest.

Mike sees Jawbone and reaches to touch it. Jawbone flees and leads him to Katie. Mike rescues Katie and when they leave, we see the MONSTER: a Thing Covered in Teeth. The Tooth Monster reaches out where Katie was sitting and takes away two bloody teeth. You wanna be scared, watch this series!

They have thrown Mike in jail because he rescued Katie…come again? Well, he’s in jail and gets released. When he gets home, he mentions Candle Cove to his mom. She responds that show was just static. We cut to all of the children of the town watching Candle Cove.

This show is absolute gooseflesh inducing. Where Stranger Things was dripping with nostalgia and gothic horror, Channel Zero taps into sheer Hitchcock suspense and Rod Serling terror. It’s a great show for October and just a great Thriller!