About GreenMan
Location: Irving, Texas
Occupation: Writer
Bio: GreenMan, aka John Petty, has worn many hats during his long and interesting life. At one time or another, he has worked as a singer, actor, magician and escape artist, tarot card reader, wine tasting instructor, writer, auctioneer, radio talk show host, comedy defensive driving instructor, and graphic designer, to name a few. Now, relatively settled in the wilds of Irving, Texas, with his wife, Judy and his two dogs and two cats, John makes his living working for Heritage Auction Galleries - he was the founding director of Heritage's Comics and Original Comic Art Department - in which capacity he writes regular columns for Comic Buyers Guide, Big Reel and Classic Images. He loves movies and is the author, along with Grey Smith, of the soon-to-be-published book, CAPES, CROOKS, AND CLIFFHANGERS: HEROIC SERIALS OF THE GOLDEN AGE (sample chapter at www.HA.com/Serial).
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For years, referencing “MTV” in reference to a creative work has meant that the thing being discussed was vapid, superficial, and appealing only to people with limited attention spans and lower than normal IQs. In this respect, Beneath, an MTV film, does not disappoint.
This pointless piece of garbage purports to tell the “story” of Christy (Nora Zehetner) who watches her sister, Vanessa (Carly Pope), burn in an auto accident. At her sisters funeral several months later, Christy throws a fit and is sent off to a hospital for treatment. Eventually returning home, she discovers a number of strange and disturbing things happening, mostly centered on her niece, Amy (Jessica Amlee).
The problem with this movie is that, at best, it makes no sense. Vanessa’s husband, John (Matthew Settle) was having an affair with the woman managing Vanessa’s case. Instead of taking Vanessa to a hospital where she could receive appropriate care, husband/doctor John keeps her at home in an isolated dungeon room, complete with rehab center. Why? No idea. He then kills his mistress and passes her body off as Vanessa’s at the funeral, spinning a story about how the mistress ran off without an explanation. Why? Who knows. Add into the mix a mother that makes Mrs. Bates look like Mrs/ Partridge for no apparent reason, and you have a mish-mash of scenes that make absolutely no sense.
Even worse is the assumption that someone who has been horribly burned in a car accident automatically becomes a monster, attempting to kill anyone who crosses her path. A stupid, offensive assumption which is nothing more than an excuse to show some horrific burn make-up.
Watching this movie makes on question the process by which movies get made. In order to get this filmed, someone had to sell a concept, then a treatment, then a script. At what point were actual professionals supposed to look at this and say, “this is crap?” At least Ed Wood’s films had some kind of comprehensible plot. Not this stinker.
Don’t rent this movie. Don’t watch this movie. Don’t encourage MTV - who haven’t been the least bit relevant for at least twenty years - for fear they may do something like this again. Just turn away and forget you ever heard of this steaming pile of crap. I’m not sure this rating system is going to let me give this one zero stars, but that’s my intention, no matter what actually appears.
I don’t know about the whole “burn victim” assumption. I didn’t get that feeling. I more saw it as she was “attempting to kill anyone who crosses her path” because she was obviously being held against her will in the basement. She didn’t want to be there, hence the scratching on the wood and so on. The people she attempted to kill were her captors and abusers. I didn’t get the feeling that they were just making a rude and untrue assumption about burn victims.
And why may John have locked his wife up at home rather than the hospital? Well, first off, a lot of people would rather treat thier families at home because it is more comfortable and hospitals can be hard to deal with. At home, the patient gets his or her own nurse and specialized attention.
And if you had actually payed any attention to the movie, you would recall that Vanessa killed her caregiver/husbands mistress after she took Vanessa out of the bath treatment. She stabbed her and john tried to cover it up as his wifes death. Vanessa killed her caregiver because she saw that she and John were having an affair.
What does the looks of Mrs. bates have anything to do with the movie review?
As much as i don’t like the whole concept of MTV, i actually really did like this movie. Sure, it was a little hard to get into and slow at times, but it was a decent horror movie if you actually payed attention and watched the plot unfold. It takes a little thinking to get through, but any good thriller does.
I agree with Kaitlyn. She was being held against her will!