Lucy Webster

This movie is mediocre at best. The acting is okay (some people were better than others), the plot was thin, and the entire movie was cliche. I was able to sort out what the twist would be early on, and ended up feeling more anxious about all the plot holes than the actual activity on screen. (Spoilers:) The plot was loosely based around a couple who were keeping and raising children in a prison, and planned on killing them and selling their skin once they were teenagers. Thats about where the cohesiveness ends with this film, and there were so many plot holes that it became almost unwatchable. First, we are never actually told at which age the children joined the school. Ten? Six? Two? They never say. Wouldn't a ten-year-old be more aware of their surroundings and generally suspicious than what we are shown here? Probably. Plus we are told that the kids are completely illiterate, which wouldn't be the case if they entered later in life, which leads to my next problem. How did the girls develop the speech that they have? Although we are shown that the kids were brainwashed from a young age, hardly ever had exposure to outside influences, and cannot read/write, they speak like current American high schoolers! The main character even exclaims multiple times that she was drugged, but how on earth does she know what drugging is? How do any of them know the kind of language they know? And finally, the initial scenes highlight the cameras all over the unit, and show how the kids were governed by the cameras. This was an interesting idea and something I enjoyed! Weirdly, though, this was stopped almost immediately. Despite the establishing shots of the cameras in every room they were living in, and the first bit of action being around how the cameras controlled everything, it literally never came into play ever again. There were even more issues (apart from proper plot holes) that just didn't make sense/wasn't properly explained/irritated me. The first of these was how careless and loud the main character acts. I cannot count how many times I found myself shouting "what are you doing??" at the screen, as she made no effort to sneak around, would speak about secrets in front of other people, wouldn't hide that she wasn't taking the sedatives, and would wander slowly around when trying to escape. This especially clashed with the character development they gave us in the beginning, about how she was anxious/scared. Next, what was the punishment that everyone was so scared of, and why were they punished in any physical way? Their skin and health was literally the only reason they were there, so why would they EVER be hit/beaten? On the same note, why was all the "properness" even in this movie? The plot made it seem (both to the viewer and the characters) that their actual behavior was extremely important, but the only thing that mattered was taking care of themselves and their hygiene. It seemed like they were trying to copy "The Handmaidens Tale" with the behavioral lessons, but in the end, the girls were just supposed to die and be skinned, so why does it matter how they acted (as long as they were sedate)? I know that I'm probably overthinking it, as it was low-budget and obviously made for entertainment (and not to break the walls of sci-fi or horror), but you are probably better off watching something else!