Straight On till Morning
The A+B formula of combining two movie concepts into one is as old as the Hollywood sign. Who Framed Roger Rabbit combined wacky old animated shorts with a pulpy noir murder mystery. The key to making the formula work is not assuming A+B=$. The equation is the start, not the entirety. Roger Rabbit takes the formula and builds a world around it where humans and toons living together makes sense, there is something of a social hierarchy, and there are politics between the two worlds, and within that world it builds, it launches this murder mystery that threatens the whole thing.
Straight On Till Morning uses that A+B formula. The A is Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There's a family with a mentally handicapped son that wears a mask and is prone to violent, murderous fits of rage, and his family kidnaps people. The B is The Loved Ones, a movie about a teenage girl who kidnaps the object of her unrequited crush in the hopes of torturing him into loving her. Morning synthesizes those two in the most obvious way.
And that is all it does. It does not iterate. It does not build. It does not expand. Dad kidnaps two women in the hopes of one of them being a suitable wife for his adult, mentally handicapped son. He's even the sheriff of town. There's a family figure (in this case the mom) in a wheelchair. The son wears a mask and is non-verbal. There's an unbearable jackass who gets killed and we're meant to enjoy it. The blonde is the woman meant to marry the son, and she and her lover are tortured and bloodied by movie's end. Is any of this sounding familiar? It should.
Now, I am no fan of TCM. I find it a little too unpolished and its final act irritating. I can appreciate its place in horror, but it's never appealed. Morning at least has more appealing protagonists than Sally Hardesty ever was. And the son isn't some massive unkillable brute like Leatherface; he doesn't know his own strength and its hard to turn him off once he gets wound up, but he's not unbeatable. But Morning does little with these new developments. Having two protagonists fighting through the pain isn't a development, it's redundancy. Having the Leatherface stand-in be less physically intimidating doesn't mean anything if he keeps shrugging off damage. And having a couple different failed escape attempts makes the movie feel like its going in circles constantly. The dynamic never changes, so the movie never changes. It just rehashes itself.
For gorehounds, it is quite the bloody movie, and from what I can tell, it's all practical. Some of the violence becomes unbelievable (especially one scene, and you'll know which when you get there), but it all does the job of making you feel sympathy for the two leads. And credit where it's due to having said characters have actual depth to them. The whole first act is getting to know them, and they are allowed to bring these characters to life. The aspect of the two leads being a lesbian couple is a bit of a mixed bag, though -- happy for the representation and that they look like real women and idealized supermodels, and the family being religious fundamentalists who judge them for it firmly shows the filmmakers are on the side of pro-LGBTQ+ ... but the sex scene feels more than a little driven by the male gaze, and the family using their sexuality against them gets dropped pretty fast, so it feels pointless in the end.
This wasn't bad per se. I was happy to see the bad guys get theirs, and I felt a little twinge at the very end. I think it's a perfectly fine entry into this sub-genre of horror. But that's the limit of it. It's just fine. TCM makes you feel nasty and dirty and leaves you skeeved out. The Loved Ones offers up a deep dive into a very disturbed young woman and her misguided idea of how to find love. Straight On Till Morning synthesizes those two, but loses something in the process. And when 1+1=1, what's left out is usually as important as what got included.
Straight On Till Morning uses that A+B formula. The A is Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There's a family with a mentally handicapped son that wears a mask and is prone to violent, murderous fits of rage, and his family kidnaps people. The B is The Loved Ones, a movie about a teenage girl who kidnaps the object of her unrequited crush in the hopes of torturing him into loving her. Morning synthesizes those two in the most obvious way.
And that is all it does. It does not iterate. It does not build. It does not expand. Dad kidnaps two women in the hopes of one of them being a suitable wife for his adult, mentally handicapped son. He's even the sheriff of town. There's a family figure (in this case the mom) in a wheelchair. The son wears a mask and is non-verbal. There's an unbearable jackass who gets killed and we're meant to enjoy it. The blonde is the woman meant to marry the son, and she and her lover are tortured and bloodied by movie's end. Is any of this sounding familiar? It should.
Now, I am no fan of TCM. I find it a little too unpolished and its final act irritating. I can appreciate its place in horror, but it's never appealed. Morning at least has more appealing protagonists than Sally Hardesty ever was. And the son isn't some massive unkillable brute like Leatherface; he doesn't know his own strength and its hard to turn him off once he gets wound up, but he's not unbeatable. But Morning does little with these new developments. Having two protagonists fighting through the pain isn't a development, it's redundancy. Having the Leatherface stand-in be less physically intimidating doesn't mean anything if he keeps shrugging off damage. And having a couple different failed escape attempts makes the movie feel like its going in circles constantly. The dynamic never changes, so the movie never changes. It just rehashes itself.
For gorehounds, it is quite the bloody movie, and from what I can tell, it's all practical. Some of the violence becomes unbelievable (especially one scene, and you'll know which when you get there), but it all does the job of making you feel sympathy for the two leads. And credit where it's due to having said characters have actual depth to them. The whole first act is getting to know them, and they are allowed to bring these characters to life. The aspect of the two leads being a lesbian couple is a bit of a mixed bag, though -- happy for the representation and that they look like real women and idealized supermodels, and the family being religious fundamentalists who judge them for it firmly shows the filmmakers are on the side of pro-LGBTQ+ ... but the sex scene feels more than a little driven by the male gaze, and the family using their sexuality against them gets dropped pretty fast, so it feels pointless in the end.
This wasn't bad per se. I was happy to see the bad guys get theirs, and I felt a little twinge at the very end. I think it's a perfectly fine entry into this sub-genre of horror. But that's the limit of it. It's just fine. TCM makes you feel nasty and dirty and leaves you skeeved out. The Loved Ones offers up a deep dive into a very disturbed young woman and her misguided idea of how to find love. Straight On Till Morning synthesizes those two, but loses something in the process. And when 1+1=1, what's left out is usually as important as what got included.
Mini Review: The A+B formula of combining two movie concepts into one is as old as the Hollywood sign. Who Framed Roger Rabbit combined wacky old animated shorts with a pulpy noir murder mystery. The key to making the formula work is not assuming A+B=$. The equation is the start, not the entirety. Roger Rabbit takes the formula and builds a world around it where humans and toons living together makes sense, there is something of a social hierarchy, and there...