Hooptober... And Then There Were Nine

34th Kill

I've become used to the guy hiding in the walls of the house trope as the twist - something we only find out about in the third act, which resolves the mystery. So it's weird to watch a film in which that guy is our actual protagonist, and we see why he ends up living behind the walls before our putative "victims" even turn up in the movie. Bad Ronald may well have been the original inspiration for that trope (I have no idea if another example predates it) but it is certainly less suspenseful and probably less narratively satisfying to see this story archetype stripped out like that.

The other consequence is that we know that Ronald is basically a good kid. A bit weird, maybe a little too attached to his mother, unreasonably excited by toolboxes and paint sets, misguided enough to think a red and green plaid shirt and ill-fitting denim jacket is going to impress the girls, but generally a nice guy. If he goes a bit psychotic, it's only to be expected, you know, seeing as how he's been TRAPPED IN A FUCKING WALL CAVITY FOR ABOUT A YEAR! But nevertheless, he never really feels like that much of a threat, even though he actually is. He is genuinely intent on killing that jock kid who starts going out with one of the daughters (Lisa Eilbacher, who will always be close to my heart as the cutest member of the crew in Leviathan when she was much older). He draws bizarre pictures of him as an Evil Duke and hates how the guy always talks ill of him. Mind you, he did kill the guy's sister, so it seems fair enough that he would hold a grudge. Alas, poor Ronald is beyond such magnanimity.

I'm going to assume that whoever was in charge of make-up for this film "worked to live" rather than "lived to work". One year's existence without showering in a dusty cavity is represented by Ronald having brown make-up smeared on his face - you can even see how it's been applied by finger, a bit like lackadaisical war paint. He really doesn't look dirty in any convincing sense, and besides, his hair still looks the same as the day he went into the walls, his glasses still look brand new, his teeth are fine. It's pretty half-hearted stuff and it does take you out of the movie a bit, because you have to keep deciding to ignore it and just go with the story.

It's all very plodding except for the fact that the characters make such bizarre choices (apparently his mother thinks it's far preferable to hide forever than give himself up for the accidental killing, because even if he gets off, the bad publicity will ruin his chances of medical school - whereas living in a hole for ten years and giving every appearance of having been guilty of the murder will set him up for every success when he finally somehow re-emerges). Things do pick up in that final act as the parents of the new family go away and the girls are terrified of this presence, not to mention the indifference of the world's worst police detective who doesn't even think it's worth a call to the parents when one of the daughters goes missing. It's more interesting as a curio of 1970's television and a progenitor of what has become a nice little horror trope.

Best Kill (may contain traces of spoiler)

Well, not much to choose between - Ronald's accidental killing of that obnoxious kid basically consists of trying to pick her up by the head (I could have told him that was a bad idea) and then dropping her so that she falls head first onto a brick. Epic fail by both of them, as far as I'm concerned.