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From back in the day... I went to see this with my dad! It was some treat or another, I think.

David is a kid of divorced parents (and his dad's remarried), and has come out to visit his dad. The neighbour had some weird things happen in his house, but surely that's unrelated. Unrelated, the electricity in his house is now sparking, rewiring tvs, and behaving kinda intelligent. The new wife is taken out, the dad tries to deal with it, then it's down to David and his dad to just survive.

This does have some neat effects, especially when the insides of the tv is rewiring itself. Solder gets heated up, flows, and rejoins circuits. Could that ever happen? Who cares! It looks cool. (My dad was an electrician, so I can only assume he treated this very incredulously.)

This movie is a stance against electrifying and connecting (with electricity) everything in the home. The heater, the gas pipes, the window bars, all controlled by electricity, and all prone to "accidents". I can only assume there's a version of this that is this exact movie with just AI controlling everything.

This has a wee Joey Lawrence as David, and playing the hard put upon father is.. Cliff De Young, who is playing every character Cliff De Young always plays. Roxanne Hart is the wife, and I'm sure I've see her in lots of things. Charles Tyner has a great turn as the Crazy Old Man Who Knows. And Joey's brother Matthew plays the kid that no-one else wants to play with.

This ain't a deep movie, but clearly I have an emotional connection with it. And the end credits ask you to ponder how the streets of the city are like the traces of the circuits board... I mean, they aren't really, but it almost makes you think.

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Kure

Another Japanese horror movie... that I'm sure I've seen before.

Mamiya doesn't remember anything, but as people talk to him, help him, he talks with them... and they go off and kill their spouse, work partner, whomstever. Chasing him down is Detective Takabe, but even capturing Mamiya doesn't stop the latter from doing horror. Indeed, in many ways, just makes it that much easier...

This reminds me of the later Exorcist movies. Mamiya definitely could be otherwise cast as the devil, talking to people and getting them to commit murder, while not doing so himself. Just out there, corrupting people. And eventually drives Takabe to the ultimate end, but corrupting him totally as he does so. From that perspective, this could easily fit into that series. Just humans coming up against something that exposes their "true selves"(*), and goes "you be like that."

(*) Given this is a horror movie, you can guess what is their "true selves" is.

Good movie, but it's not a happy one.

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Imageniry

Let end the year with some anime!

I recall at least one other movie about imaginary friends, but I think there were two, but I don't recall them being good... this one is better. Not great, but better. Rather than focus on the person imagining, this follows the imaginee, and the world they are in where they see other imaginary friends and help kids and such. However, how Rudger gets here is because his imanginer is in an accident due to a person eating imaginaries, so he must find a way back, if he can, and if he can avoid being eaten.

Fun is nearly the word, what with child in danger and such, but this isn't downbeat. It's intended to get at the heartstrings and is effective at that. That said, be prepared to be in the right mood to see this, as I can see people bouncing off this hard if they aren't.

It is on Netflix, but be careful of how much you enjoy subtitles with everything subs including "wind noises" and "exciting music."

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