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| They couldn't possibly muck this all up. Right? |
Treehouse
The film opens with a battered looking woman in what looks like the Arizona Badlands. She is at a picnic setup with a basket that is filled with like 10% food and 90% Cutco cutlery. Looks like Vector got another one, folks. She picks up one of the knives before we cut to Jimmi Simpson (of D.E.B.S. Fame) as Peter, an in-universe knock off of Gordon Ramsey. He runs the restaurant Riley, named after his daughter (who you can soon forget about) where he films a reality TV show where he berates his staff with none of the tact and charm of Gordon Ramsey and all of the Beta of Jimmi Simpson. After filming an episode, Peter talks with Riley about going with her to his ex-wife's wedding, which he can't attend because he has something important he has to handle. He promises her that next time, he won't be a shitty dad. Haven't heard that one before, Peter.
We cut to a weird montage of Peter on the phone with a person named Barry who is handling his end of something for him, and Peter driving the coast while lame Alternative Rock plays. He arrives at a bait shop where he shares a moment with a woman who is a member of the world's most diverse bachelorette party. The owner of the bait shop is Lonnie, a guy Peter and his sister grew up with. Peter makes several quips about Lonnie being Buffalo Bill before Lonnie makes creepy remarks about Peter's sister Gwen, scaring Peter off.
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| Michael Weston: "What's my direction?" Director: "I want you to channel an autistic stage actor Playing Norman Bates in Psycho: The Musical, but his son died two minutes ago and his last wish was for you to finish the performance" Michael: Say no more. |
Peter arrives at his childhood home, where he meets up with Gwen and the family gargoyle house keeper Agnes. Peter and Gwen haven't seen each other in 3 years, because something bad and vague happened, which caused everyone to hate Peter, and he's mad that Gwen didn't have his back. Gwen asks why he called her to the family home, and Peter mentions that the people on the internet are out to get him. Gwen takes a call, and she expositions to us and Peter that she's the DA and she has to immediately take a case, leaving Peter alone with Agnes, and apparently a giant fucking goat that Peter jokingly calls Black Phillip.
Peter discovers an odd picture (which viewers not who aren't blind will notice is a shitty painting of the Knife Saleswoman from the beginning of the movie) which Agnes states that his father painted before he died. Weird occurrences happen, such as cockroaches appearing in the pristine kitchen, bloody gore in a toilet, and random calls from Lonnie talking about how proud of Peter he is. Kara, the woman from the bait shop, stops by that evening stating that the power went out at their party house, and Peter offers assistance while vigorously banging his head against the 4th wall.
TWENTY SIX WHOLE minutes into the movie, Peter goes out for a morning run, where he encounters the titular tree-house. We're then greeted with wild zoom ins, blood red filters, scare chords, sounds of children playing, and the sounds of a woman groaning in discontent. This tree-house is totally into Death Metal. Kara shows up and Peter tells her that he and Gwen used to spend a lot of time in the tree-house before Dora Milaje and Hispanic Caricature from the bachelorette party arrive. They exchange lame banter with Peter, who offers to cook for them. The women arrive for dinner later, bringing along the rest of the group, Obvious Brit and MILF.
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| Director: I've never seen more than 2 women together at one time. How do they ride in cars? Assistant: I assume like everyone else? Director: That doesn't sound right. |
Everyone drinks and eats and have a good time. They exchange more lame banter and topics which were dated before the movie even aired, and the women show off their matching Celtic Knot tattoos of sisterhood. Peter gets wasted, acts like a hipster dick, and proceeds to pass the fuck out. He wakes up later in bed with Obvious Brit, who has also passed out. He stumbles downstairs, where he comes across a peacock and some leftover props from the Blair Witch Project. Disturbed, he runs upstairs to find Obvious Brit missing, before a bunch of mask wearing weirdos start creeping into the house. The Masked figures prance around Peter "menacingly," Peter randomly gets a Charley Horse and falls over before the masked figures drag him inside another room.
Peter awakens again, paralyzed, with a chain tied around his neck with Obvious Brit passed out next to him, wearing Sears Catalog lingerie. Kara appears dressed like an extra in A Mid-Summer Night's Dream and reveals herself to be a Witch. You see, Peter raped Kara's sister Becca in the titular tree-house when they were teens, and because he was from a wealthy family, he never got in trouble. It turns out that the Knife saleswoman from earlier was Becca, the cutlery was Peter's brand of cutlery, and she used said cutlery to commit suicide. What a terrible marketing strategy, Vector. The other women appear, also stating they are witches, and proceed to torture Peter by twerking, annoying him with prestidigitation and giving him a 60 minute hair, nail and skin treatment without his consent.
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| Spa Day is a very dangerous day. |
The witches continue to taunt Peter, and it turns out he is a repeat sexual assaulter, who has assaulted journalists and female participants on his show. A recent accusation was the something Peter was discussing with Barry and why he wanted to meet with Gwen. Peter regains use of his limbs and proceeds to choke and kick bitches left and right before escaping. He runs downstairs and calls Lonnie for help, and the Witches corner him in the kitchen. He tries to leave the house but Dora Milaje goes Monday Night Raw and delivers a swift beat down to the colonizer. Lonnie pulls up like a fucking boss ready to throw-down and save Peter, but apparently Agnes is his mother, and she's in on the scheme, so she sends his simple ass home.
Peter wakes up, AGAIN, this time in a peacock cage. The witches taunt him some more and then dress him up in women's clothes before letting him loose like a fox to hunt. Peter stumbles about in his lady heels and runs down to the tree-house and hides inside. There he finds the walls plastered with all of the news coverage of his various sexual assaults as well as crime scene imagery from Becca's suicide. He flees in terror outside where Gwen is waiting in her car. Gwen confesses that she too, is in on it, and asked the women to teach Peter a lesson, as Becca was her best friend. She feels guilt for siding with Peter over Becca, and she's tired of him getting away with his raping ways. The witches appear and Gwen informs Peter that she didn't know they were real witches, and they attack the car, dragging Peter and Gwen away.
Peter awakens, YET AGAIN, tied to a bed, but with his hands staked and bloody. The witches do more random witch twerking and ninjitsu hand signs before drawing their Celtic Knot symbol on his chest in blood. Peter proceeds to pass out again like a punk ass, and wakes up the next morning in his bed, fully clothed, with the house in a state as if nothing ever happened. Kara calls and tells Peter that Gwen has no memory of what happened and that no one will ever believe him if he tries to go to the authorities. She warns him that unless he wants to suffer again, to never touch another woman. Then she turns his stove on.
It is then revealed to the audience that Surprise: Everyone was in on it the whole time! Wait a minute.... Yeah... In a double double twist, it turns out that none of them are actually witches, and Gwen knew this as well, and everything was just a bunch of party tricks used to scare Peter dickless! Except, all of the times they drugged Peter to paralyze and knock him unconscious. Oh yeah and the time Obvious Brit almost shot Peter with a fucking crossbow.
Peter, clearly traumatized shitless at this point, decides to drive immediately to his ex-wife's house to make amends with both her and his daughter. Progress! As peter is leaving, a parcel delivery woman stops and greets him by name. Confused, as he does not recognize the woman, she flashes her wrist, showing off the Celtic Knot Tattoo the "Witches" posses. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN.
The first of MANY problems with this movie, is the tone. Jimmi Simpson portrays Peter as this Genre Savvy asshole, who quips incessantly throughout the movie about all of the horror and movie cliche's he find himself in, until the witches reveal themselves, wherein he becomes a whimpering pile of failure. The issue with this is that everyone else plays their role straight. Sure the writing is bad, but you can't have your main character try to Ash Williams their way through a bad movie if your movie is meant to be taken seriously. If you want to see a good example of a Genre Savvy asshole try to quip himself out of a horror scenario, watch the Playtest episode of Black Mirror.
Problem #2 is the writing and characters. This movie tried too hard to be current, and most of the dialogue is a wanna be cool guy talking to a diverse group of women. Unfortunately it was written by 2 white dudes, and it shows. Outside of Kara and Gwen, the women are horrible cliches of what white guys think non-white women are like. Hispanic Caricature can't go 5 words without saying Papi or Puerto Rico, Dora Milaje is of course the only witch who tries voodoo and jokes as if she's offended by the very first thing Peter says to her, and I'm pretty sure they just wrote Obvious Brit's script in MS Word, changed the system language to EN-BR, then pressed autocorrect.
It's obvious that this movie is trying to approach the #MeToo movement, but it's got to be one of the most shallow executions ever. I feel like the movie goes out of the way to make Peter interesting and somewhat likable, and make all of the women one note and shallow, and then be like "If you you're still rooting for Peter even after you find out he's a serial rapist, you're a piece of shit! You should obviously side with the many female human people, as there are more of them." I get it movie. We should always believe women, even if we know and love the accused. You beat us over the head with that with Gwen and Peter's talk in the car. But human nature will almost always make people side with those whom they familiar over strangers.
The one thing I did like about the movie is the implication of the ending. When the Parcel Delivery Woman shows her tattoo to Peter, it all clicks to me. You see, Peter has been skating through life on his celebrity, wealth, and white privilege. He's basically a super hero. But now, not only was he put through a situation that no one will ever believe, he can no longer feel safe around any woman. Any woman he ever comes across could be one of the "witches". Now he knows what it feels like to be the women he has prayed on. The opposite gender could do him harm at any moment, and no one will ever believe him if it happens.
Too bad the movie did a shitty job of getting me there THREE OUT OF TEN. NEXT!
Peter awakens, YET AGAIN, tied to a bed, but with his hands staked and bloody. The witches do more random witch twerking and ninjitsu hand signs before drawing their Celtic Knot symbol on his chest in blood. Peter proceeds to pass out again like a punk ass, and wakes up the next morning in his bed, fully clothed, with the house in a state as if nothing ever happened. Kara calls and tells Peter that Gwen has no memory of what happened and that no one will ever believe him if he tries to go to the authorities. She warns him that unless he wants to suffer again, to never touch another woman. Then she turns his stove on.
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| What unfathomable power! |
It is then revealed to the audience that Surprise: Everyone was in on it the whole time! Wait a minute.... Yeah... In a double double twist, it turns out that none of them are actually witches, and Gwen knew this as well, and everything was just a bunch of party tricks used to scare Peter dickless! Except, all of the times they drugged Peter to paralyze and knock him unconscious. Oh yeah and the time Obvious Brit almost shot Peter with a fucking crossbow.
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| Yeah.... about that.... |
My Thoughts
Problem #2 is the writing and characters. This movie tried too hard to be current, and most of the dialogue is a wanna be cool guy talking to a diverse group of women. Unfortunately it was written by 2 white dudes, and it shows. Outside of Kara and Gwen, the women are horrible cliches of what white guys think non-white women are like. Hispanic Caricature can't go 5 words without saying Papi or Puerto Rico, Dora Milaje is of course the only witch who tries voodoo and jokes as if she's offended by the very first thing Peter says to her, and I'm pretty sure they just wrote Obvious Brit's script in MS Word, changed the system language to EN-BR, then pressed autocorrect.
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| Sophia: "I was like 'Are you having a laugh' and then the wanker goes 'Bollocks' and then my mate Dora.." Director: Cut! Sophia! Beautiful! But let's try the scene again, this time replaces your 'I's and 'My's with 'Me's. Also hold this pot of tea. |
It's obvious that this movie is trying to approach the #MeToo movement, but it's got to be one of the most shallow executions ever. I feel like the movie goes out of the way to make Peter interesting and somewhat likable, and make all of the women one note and shallow, and then be like "If you you're still rooting for Peter even after you find out he's a serial rapist, you're a piece of shit! You should obviously side with the many female human people, as there are more of them." I get it movie. We should always believe women, even if we know and love the accused. You beat us over the head with that with Gwen and Peter's talk in the car. But human nature will almost always make people side with those whom they familiar over strangers.
The one thing I did like about the movie is the implication of the ending. When the Parcel Delivery Woman shows her tattoo to Peter, it all clicks to me. You see, Peter has been skating through life on his celebrity, wealth, and white privilege. He's basically a super hero. But now, not only was he put through a situation that no one will ever believe, he can no longer feel safe around any woman. Any woman he ever comes across could be one of the "witches". Now he knows what it feels like to be the women he has prayed on. The opposite gender could do him harm at any moment, and no one will ever believe him if it happens.
Too bad the movie did a shitty job of getting me there THREE OUT OF TEN. NEXT!
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