DVD Review of the Week: The Yellow Wallpaper

How to survive a horror movie tip #88
If you rent a fully furnished home and while cleaning you find a trunk full of dirt, please for the love of God don’t sift thru it.

Word of the day:
Subjugate
Pronunciation (SUHB-juh-gayt) Verb: To bring under control or make submissive

I can’t not count the times I’ve stood on a soapbox proclaiming that I will never again watch a book to film, or a foreign to American remake of a movie, and as of late I’ve also bemoaned the remaking of American movies that were perfectly perfect the way they are. I guess Sissy Spacek’s portrayal Stephen King’s of Carrie just wasn’t good enough and in the height of my hysteria a director comes along who gives me pause.

Logan Thomas has produced a film called The Yellow Wallpaper. Yes, that Yellow Wallpaper and just as I was about to go on a murderous rampage I read:

“The Yellow Wallpaper is an ‘Origins Myth’... rather than a direct adaptation of the famous Charlotte Perkins Gilman story. Drawing from the original short story and a number of Gilmans' other gothic works (The Giant Wisteria, The Unwatched Door, etc.), The Yellow Wallpaper is an original narrative of events that unfold around the actual writing of "The Yellow Wallpaper.”

I had to put my axe down and read that part again. And then again. And finally I decided to give it a go.



Plotline: In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story we watch the main character go mad as she is locked in a bedroom while suffering from postpartum depression. In Logan Thomas’ story the main character, her husband and sister are grieving the lost of the main character’s child who died in a fire. Homeless with very little money the trio moves into a big house that’s unreasonably affordable.

Scariness Factor: N/A

Gross-Out Factor: N/A

Complaints: The 1st thing that started to bug me was that this most of this movie is shot completely in the dark. I understand that during that time not everyone could not afford electricity, but for some reason even during the day the residents favored the parts of the house furthest from the windows, so they were always roaming around in the shadows. The other thing that irritated was the use of “scary” music when there was nothing scary going on.

High Points: All three people are struggling to find a way to live after the little girl dies and even though Charlotte is worse off than the others, they all try to comfort each other in the best way they can while at the same time dealing with their own personal feelings of guilt and varying degrees of depression.

Personal Commentary: Like with all movies where the house is as much a character as the cast it’s a slow build; and like with all movies where the house is as much a character as the cast the people living it ignore the signs letting them know that something may be wrong with/inside their new home.

After a series of strange noises & unexplained sightings, they enlist the help of a medium and of course the entity that shows himself is evil. The decision is made to leave in the morning. When they all wake up in the afternoon the physic missing. John takes his wife and sister-in-law outside forbids them to go back inside and leaves to go into town and rent a horse and carriage to take them away. Up to this point The Yellow Wallpaper is just another little haunted house movie but then things take a turn for the worse…

As John is walking to town out of nowhere there’s a cameo appearance of some tall blonde in armor and chain mail. John wanted to know if he came to stop him from going to town and if he was already dead, and the armored blond says ‘No I am.” Ok…

Meanwhile back at the house the sister’s find the physic dead in a shallow grave, and then all of a sudden wolves show up and chase them back into the house (don’t ask I’m just as confused as you are)

When John gets back home he can’t find his wife or her sister but who he does encounter is the very 1st owner of the house from 100 years ago. John demands how can this be and low and behold we find out the owner is still alive because he is a vampire. After being attacked John wakes up to find the landlord there who explains that Charlotte is now a vampire and it’s now John’s job to feed her. Fast forward to today and John is the new landlord and he is renting the house at an unreasonably affordable rate.

Stars: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars

Where I rented it: The Yellow Wallpaper is available to watch online for free.