smallpox.

Disney movies that never made it.  Click the pic for larger version.

Lifted from my lecture doodle notebook.  Yeah, I need a scanner.  No, nobody has taken a cell phone pic and transferred it in like two years.  That’s sooo 2007.

Orphan.

There is something wrong with Esther.  What is it?  The fact that you paid 10 bucks to see Orphan.

Dammit, America, what is your fascination with “killer kid” movies?  Why do you find them scary, or in any way suspenseful?  I will just never understand it.  Not as long as I am taller, stronger, smarter and generally more capable of slaughtering people than my adversary.  Because it’s a known fact that all children are small, weak, stupid and only capable of stabbing at thigh level or below.  If you should ever be outsmarted or overpowered by one of these fun-sized bastards, you deserve your demise.  Every excruciating moment of it.

Not only is ‘Orphan’ a good case against adoption – you shouldn’t ever adopt, because you’re only ever going to end up with a miniature sociopath incapable of acknowledging all emotion – but it’s a good case against why modern horror movies suck.  How do, time and time again, full-grown adults manage to find themselves in life-or-death situations due to some crazed child’s elaborate Rube Goldberg projects?  It’s like Saw for the Home Alone crowd, every damn time.  Kid is brought into family.  Kid is too weird to fit in with family.  Kid begins killing small animals and endangering youngest child of family, managing some twisted third-grade MacGyverism out of water balloons and daddy’s nailgun.  Solution to this problem?  Kick the brat in the face.  Seriously.  If there is one thing that modern science has taught us about children, it’s that they are extremely vulnerable to face kicks – roundhouse or straight up.  They’re just the right height so as not to expend too much energy raising and extending the leg in a kicking motion, and the consequential impact should be enough to daze if not concuss them.  And believe me, none of those little shits are going to torture puppies when they are dazed and/or concussed.

I know what you’re saying – Esther wasn’t a kid.  Oh, a spoiler.  Well, not really a spoiler.  I have a few problems with this movie in its own right.  For one, I guessed the twist from the freaking television spot.  I remember it clearly, sitting with my five-dollar Cold Cut Combo in hand, watching the TV spot for yet another killer kid movie, and wondering if the movie – on top of being another craptastic killer kid movie – actually would have the audacity to steal the twist from 1973′s Don’t Look Now.  It would make perfect sense and fit a crappy movie accordingly, you know, since its inclusion would be one of the more unoriginal directions a crappy writer could take a crappy script.  Surely enough, the next day at work a handful of co-workers are planning on a trip to see the movie after work, and I tell them all “I bet she’s just, like, a 35-year-old midget or something.”  Was I correct?  I guess I was off by a few years.  I’ll never guess what’s wrong with Esther, my ass!

I never did see the movie – I was just told, as usual, that I was correct – but I did detect one huge flaw in Esther’s logic within the context of her nefarious plan.  I guess the plan was to seduce the adoptive father and assume a share of his estate or something?  Correct if I’m wrong, I seriously did not see the movie and will never be inclined to research its many awful plot points, but that was my understanding.  And if that is the case: what the hell, Esther?  Genius plan.  Seduce your father?  This isn’t some cousindiddling third-world country, dammit!  This is America!  We only diddle cousins in the deep south!  What in the fourth circle of orphan hell would make you think your adoptive father would be vulnerable to your seduction?  Go figure, a crappy movie featured a crappy character with a very crappy plan.  Research indicates that 98 percent of plans that revolve around incestuous overtones are not successful plans.  The only one who walks home happy is Woody Allen.

So, again, this killer kid stuff is getting out of hand.  The Omen‘s Damien?  Yeah, I mean, I can kinda understand that one.  Anti-christ and all, those kids are pretty scary, not because they’re kids but rather because they channel the energy of, oh I don’t know, SATAN!  But Children of the Corn?  Village of the Damned?  Child’s Play?  Any movie where the killer still orders off the kid’s menu at Denny’s?  The only thing scary about those is the fact that there are millions of dumbasses out there who pay full-price admission to see the fun-sized misdeeds of killers who aren’t even tall enough to ride most rollercoasters.