There’s overacting and then there is OVERACTING. Kathryn Hunter is so over the top in The Front Room that Jim Carrey asked her to tone it down a shade, that Christoph Waltz thought she should maybe dial it back a bit … I could go on, but you get the idea. The idea you won’t get is how this film is a horror.
Is horror now defined by having to deal with a really unpleasant relative for a while? Then, yeah, I guess The Front Room is a horror film. But I swear this is “horror” in the way people use it hyperbolically to describe mundane inconveniences, like a bad trip to the supermarket.
Belinda (Brandy Norwood), a college professor, is pregnant. Her sack-of-shit husband Norman (Andrew Burnap) is a lawyer. Despite the double-income-no-kids-two-professionals lifestyle, these dudes are broke, which is a neat trick. Just what are you guys spending money on, anyway? Desperate for monetary answers, the Lord provideth – Norman’s aged step-mother Solange (Hunter) offers them all of her considerable wealth with the caveat that the couple takes her in.
Gee, how bad could it be? I mean exactly how horrible can one old woman be, anyway?
Enough to make me hate this movie, for a start.
Apparently, this not-old-enough Godsquader is capable of making every day a living Hell. Solange whines like a child when not getting what she wants and bullies her way into the baby’s bedroom, the family dinner, and even gets to name the future infant, overriding parental choices.
Oh, but she’s not done. She speaks in tongues. She’s critical of everything. And she’s
incontinent and carries and ungodly stench about her. When called on it, she gives in and soils everything she can soil … I’m not kidding here.
Yes, this is extremely unpleasant … but is it horror? So, an old woman demands attention at every turn. That’s not really a new thing. It 100% describes our 45th President. Was Trump horror? Yes, I suppose in a way … or several ways. Mostly, I think this film exists to make us hate old people, which is a pretty awful message.
And while this film is awful in several ways, I don’t want to slight the performance of Kathryn Hunter, who went in Act I from “I think she was in one of the Harry Potter movies” to “OMG! GET THIS HORRIBLE BEAST OFF MY SCREEN” by the middle of Act II. You know your movie is bad when you have you audience praying to see more of Brandy and less of every other cast member.
There once was a pregnant professor
Who invited her MIL transgressor
The old woman stayed
At a price dearly paid
For this walking audience oppressor
Rated R, 94 Minutes
Director: Max Eggers, Sam Eggers
Writer: Susan Hill, Max Eggers, Sam Eggers
Genre: Guess who’s coming to all the dinners?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who have considered murdering their in-laws
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who cannot stand overacting
