What is the Afflicted?
The Afflicted is one of those films again which I regret watching. I was searching for Law and Order to watch and came across on the home page for the films a film being recommended called, 'The Afflicted' which had film festival awards and a picture of a closeup of someone's mouth screaming. Reading the plot, it intrigued me thinking it would cover topics that would be interesting to view from a psychological point of view. But after finishing the film it proved to be a bleak and depressing film that served to only make you sick. If you've read my blog before, I did a review on 'Megan Is Missing'. I honestly do not know which is worse. 'Megan Is Missing' or this atrocity. I searched for reviews after watching and getting shocked but only found about two mediocre ones via blogs and wikipedia doesn't even have an entry on this film, so decided to do a review to warn people about this piece of cinema.
This stupid picture is what caught my attention, had I not seen it I would have avoided an awful film that made me feel just completely disgusted. Notice the awards or whatever the heck they are with 2011. I thought it was bound to be a good film. Fell for it hook, line, sinker.
Here is a plot summary that I got from the film website, I will be going further into this so warning for spoilers:
Leslie Easterbrook plays the lead role of 'Mother Maggie', a disturbed mother of four who delivers an unimaginable level of abuse to her children while defending her actions with her own twisted interpretations of the Bible. Three daughters live in constant fear of being beaten and abused by their mentally disturbed mother. Escaping the wrath of their mother seems impossible and proves to be deadly. Based on a true story, The Afflicted takes you inside the lives of those who live in constant fear with no escape.
Who would you recommend this to?
Honestly. I would recommend it to nobody. But I have to recommend it to someone so here goes.
I recommend this to the following:
1. Counselors who are damn useless at their job of recognizing when a child is suffering parent abuse at home and tells them explicitly to their face but listens to the mother.
2. Older brothers who don't know what a bad brother is like.
3. People who enjoy the feeling of depression and sadness to create an art piece of make music, for whatever reason. (Or go and listen to some music)
4. Bored teenagers, adults looking for something horrible and full of suspense and the world's worst and creepiest mum.
5. Social services.
6. Parents, particularly the husband so they recognise when their wives are about to lose it.
What happens in 'The Afflicted'?
Right after reading the plot it sounded like an interesting story covering a tragic true story with an ending that the police and town discover what happens and children are saved. Oh how wrong I was. I should stop thinking these films are going to have a happy ending. Stupid expectations but on with the plot. The story begins with a happy beginning with Carla (played by Katie Hollands) receiving a present of butterflies earrings from Cowboy Profil (played by J.D. Hart). The story is narrated by Grace and I'm sorry but I don't know the actresses name. Its been so hard to find the cast's names even in IMDb which is saying something.
So this is the family:
Father Hank, Mother Maggie played by Leslie Easterbrook, daughters Carla who receives butterfly earrings at the beginning, daughter Cathy who runs for help and daughter Grace who narrates the story from start to finish as well as son called Bill. And the family's friend Cowboy Profil who gave the butterfly earrings.
Now I'm going to copy Axel from Kingdom Hearts and say:
"GOT THAT MEMORISED?"
What happens next?
Following this happy beginning, the next scene involves the father leaving quietly, he dresses quietly leaving the wife asleep, gets his bag and heads quietly to the door. Next thing? She's at the chair and asks him where he's going. Apparently for a walk but she notices he has a bag. He leaves through the door and she hits him with a bat killing him, using rope to attach to a back of car, drags him to the shed and puts his body in the storage box. Oh what a lovely beginning, roll out the rest of the film.
Grace then begins to narrate what happened after the mysterious disappearance of papa
With Daddy gone we see the abuse that occurs in the house with the mother and her daughters. It first starts when Carla tells her mother that she cannot buy alcohol from the store anymore because she is under aged. Her mother's reaction to this is to beat her with a belt and get a pillow to asphyxiate her until her daughter is in tears. This is just the beginning and was bearable, things get worse from here on out. There is a phonecall the next scene (I don't know how much time passes sometimes in the film so I'm going to guess a few days) in which the Mother is being requested to go to school.
One of the other daughters, Cathy has spilled the beans to a counselor about the abuse she is receiving at home. The Mother arrives to school with cowboy Profil dressed nicely with makeup and talking emotionally and kindly wondering where Cathy could have been upset. 'It must be something to do with school, we have such a wonderful home. It upsets me to see her like this'. The counselor is a fool. FOOL FOOL FOOL.
Woman to left is Mother Maggie, gentleman is Cowboy Profit and the idiot with the spectacles is the counselor. WHO TO BELIEVE? A crying girl scared of her mother, or that woman. :/
Cathy returns home with her mother after the counselor believes Maggie and begs her mother to forgive her. The mother tells her to go the house and straightaway the evil look returns and we know oh dear, here we go. She goes to the shed, uses some screw drivers, hammers and some other utensils you use in a shed to build, from going to the convention it looked like a paddle. But this paddle is not for fun but for discipline as the mother announced to her children, hitting Cathy repeatedly.
Thoughts so far...
This is what I was expecting, an alcoholic mother who was having a psychotic episode using religion to abuse her children and maybe a resolution of some sort. Things however take a different turn.
The mother isn't eccentric, she's crazy...
By this point, the mother needs bills paid and is lazy so she comes up with a wonderful idea and goes to her daughter Carla to tell her God told her a way to pay her bills.
Maggie: Carla, I've been having problems paying the bill and asked God for help and he told me a wonderful idea. You can use your daughter, beautiful Carla. Now go make yourself pretty. The men will touch you here and you might enjoy it, or they may go here which is also okay but you need to do it.
Carla: Are you fu***** sick?
Maggie: I AM NOT SICK, I AM JUST TRYING TO PROVIDE A LIVING! (slaps)
Yes you read that right, the mother wants to pimp out her own daughter to pay the rent. :/ Someone get a shrink for the women LIKE NOW!!!!
The next five minutes involve Carla being raped by an ugly man and bursting into tears at the end.
Why did you keep watching?
The suspense and also I had hope, I was hoping they will be able to escape and held onto that wish, hoping for the best after all the suffering they were to endure.
The mother notices she's getting fat.
After going on scales, Maggie the mother notices she's getting fat so takes it out on Cathy force feeding her cake mixture and other food again and again until Cathy revolts by saying she's had enough. At this point the brother, Bill is in the car outside with Cowboy Profit, who tells him about the abuse he endured from his alcoholic father and tells him if he needs a father figure or is in trouble, he only need to tell him.
Now you think this would be a perfect opportunity for the boy to tell him but no he says NOTHING!
ZILCH NADA! ZIPPY DIDO!
When Bill enters the house, the Mother has gotten a gun out and has shot Cathy in the shoulder, the siblings try to call the police but with a crazy woman holding a gun kind of makes it hard. Cathy is then handcuffed to the shower railing and honestly I should stop calling Maggie a Mother at all at this point.Cowboy Profit pays the house a visit without any of the children telling him what has happened even the guy being an idiot when Grace handed a note discretely. Instead of hiding it he waved it around resulting in its disposal by Maggie, know having her eyes on Grace being disloyal. Seducing Cowboy Profit, Grace returns to her room hopeless. Maggie continues to torture her poor daughter and begins saying to her she doesn't know suffering, having a bipolar episode describing a brutal rape episode with her father that sends chills down the spine.
I like Cathy. She was the brave one and the one who had the guts to tell someone. She even stood up to Maggie saying what us on our viewer had on our mind.
"I don't care what excuses you have mum. Nothing justifies this".
Days pass, nobody does anything as Cathy slowly dies from infection with the mother removing the bullet from her but just from the state of Cathy you knew the poor girl had it, guessing septicemia or something. Billy buries her body being the obedient son and now only three children are left.
Happy Families :D
One child down, :(
Oh no poor Cathy, maybe one dies and this encourages the others to stop their mum and escape. I thought after this. (No Adam, you are being delusional, again like Maggie is).
When there's fewer of you, chances of being picked increase...
With Cathy dead or as Grace put it, "Free". There has now been three moments where the nightmare could have ended but has failed on part of Billy, the idiot counselor and Cowboy Twit.
We then see Carla looking at the fast asleep Maggie. This is the adrenaline rushing moment in which Carla collects the keys and tries to escape but fails. Maggie decides to punish Carla by forcing her own two children to beat Carla to a bloody pulp which is where I start to get annoyed.
Grace hits Carla three times until Maggie is satisfied. But Billy, the brother hits his sister to the point when you finally see Carla's face in the closet her body is dragged to, her face is unrecognizable. Grace narrates the reason being for their obedience because it was the first time they felt their mother loved them and praised them. I know these children will be psychologically messed up but Billy irritated me. Why would he hit his poor defence-less sister with such rage. Was he releasing that rage he had built up against his mother?
Or heck, in some reviews some people pointed this out why didn't the children turn on the mother. Maggie's son was taller and perhaps stronger than the mother and they outnumbered her. However, I guess psychology plays an explanation again. With the constant abuse, they felt constantly trapped and powerless even when in reality they were not.
Carla is next to die as again nobody does again, even Billy who leaves the house to go to work. BROTHER OF THE YEAR GOES TO: NOT BILLY!
Carla's body
Billy dumps his sister which he killed into a cardboard box, dumps into the middle of nowhere and sets it alight. I did not understand one simple logic of this. Wouldn't the kindest thing to do, after all he did would be to bury his poor sister. No I'll just dump her on the side of the road and set her alight like a kebab. Job done he drives off saying to himself "What the eff am I doing?".
Me: Yes Billy, I was wondering myself too. WHAT THE EFF ARE YOU DOING?!
Maggie loves Billy and Grace a lot after how well they taught that Carla a lesson. But without Carla, she turns Grace into the new escort of the family for the ugly truck driver. Grace reaches breaking point after also being raped and cannot handle it anymore.
The Brutal and stupid finale~ in which we learn the blurb of the film had a rhetorical question. THERE IS NO RUDDY ESCAPE.
I'm fed up of retelling the plot so I'm going to hurry it up.
Cowboy Profit spends fifteen minutes at a strip club before being kicked out and driving around in a stupid manner. I'm surprised he didn't have an accident with the amount of alcohol he chugged down. The police discover Carla's body and Cowboy Profit sees the commotion, he looks at the body to see the Butterfly earrings. The same butterfly earrings he gave as a present to Carla.
"That demonic bitch!" he yells getting into the car without even telling the police. What a bright bloke, oh well he is a cowboy, and the people with brain cells have already been killed off.
Me: Hooray, justice that is too late as the rest of the characters get killed off.
Grace looks as though she is about to kill herself as she slits her wrist with a knife, she does it but it turns out to all be act for her Maggie. Dropping the knife on the floor and calling for her, she sees the knife and notices her slit wrist. Whilst Maggie is distracted, Grace pulls out the gun and shoots the bitch in the chest. (Pardon my language but after 1 hour of watching a mother treating her children like that, it makes me quite huzzah).
Maggie dies. And not even brutally, slowly or even disgracefully.
Me: Antagonist is dead! Hooray, that means the children are free!
Billy returns home, finds the home bloody and his mother dead. STAB! Grace sticks a knife into his chest and holds it there as Billy dies.
Me: What goes around comes around~ as said by Beyoncé
Cowboy Profit reaches the residence opens the door to find the mess, I mean Tragedy with Grace putting a gun at her head, ready to blow her brains out.
Paradox narration. :O
Cowboy Profit tries his best to make Grace see sense, apologizing he didn't realize earlier when she gave him the note even offering to put himself in prison for the girl to have a second chance at life.
Me: COME ONE GRACE! Live for you sisters, make something of yourself, tell people your story, get counseling and live. You can do it. Listen to the cowboy.
Grace: (Blows her brains out)
Me: What the hell, you were narrating the story to us, how can you do a first-person narration if you died. Great another story with no point and no survivors. At least Cowboy Profit survived?
Even Romeo and Juliet ending was Tragedy as a result of Love, this was the result of mummy issues.
Final thoughts.
This was not what I was expecting and good lord. This is why children are not home-schooled in the U.K. or why we don't sell guns. The only pros of this film is that it made me feel better about my life and learn how to identify mothers who need a shrink on the double and what NOT to do being an older brother. With that, I have written this long post that has taken 2 hours to write so people know what this film is really about without being deceived by the poster. The film has a good performance by Leslie Easterbrook, she will creep you at Maggie without a doubt but do not expect the film to have a resolution. Its meant to be bleak, depressing, disgusting and just meant to make you feel crap. But now I have warned you.
This is TokyoDreamer9
Adieu
