I decided to scan the previous reviews in case there might have been some redeeming quality that I overlooked, but there was no such quality. There isn't even a consensus on how to categorize the film-- is it horror or thriller or drama or comedy or Southern Gothic or all of the above or none of the above? No consensus, because there is no there there. Reviewer John Anthony Mazzei of Cleveland writes, "The viewer sees all but not the players. Two rounds from a twelve gauge and a wordless epilogue close the movie." However, assuming for the sake of argument that there does exist in literature such an self-contradictory device as a wordless epilogue, it's as flimsy and pointless as a Kardashian's see-through nightie. Beatrice, a young interior decorator with the world's worse taste in men, is the long-suffering girlfriend of cynical, sarcastic. pain-in- the-ass, epileptic Owen. After three years of unprotected relations, dumbbell Beatrice is with child, and she compounds her stupidity by badgering Owen that they absolutely have to drive out-of-state somewhere to see Owen's crazy grandmother Violet and crazy sister Pearl, both of whom he hasn't seen in eleven years and does not want to ever see again. After arriving at Grandma's house, even dumbbell Beatrice can understand that grandma and Pearl are not just ha-ha crazy but bats--t crazy, but she and Owen keep hanging around until one day, Pearl splatters the guts of both Owen and Grandma all over Grandma's kitchen with Grandma's own shotgun. Beatrice, cowering on the kitchen floor, survives unscathed, and the twisted pastor of Grandma's church has pulled up to the house in his Lincoln Continental and is lurking outside with a tire iron in his hand. That is the wordless epilogue? What unspoken pearls of wisdom do we learn here?1. When a healthy, attractive young woman with a career and a nice apartment has the world's worst boyfriend for three years, she should cut her losses and kick him out before she gets knocked up and not wait until she is feeling too old and too attached to start to look for someone better. 2. Like a broken clock, even the world's worst boyfriend is still right twice a day, at least when it comes to his own damn bats--t crazy relatives, and his butt-in-sky girlfriend should learn to butt out and give him at least an ounce of credit. 3. Don't leave a twelve-gauge shotgun around the house for the deranged, disfigured relatives up in Grandma's attic to find. Thing is, moviegoers like me may not mind quirky black humor and dark family secrets of mayhem and murder and deranged, disfigured relatives who stay up in Grandma's attic, but we don't want to sit through it all and then get no resolution or redemption in the end--only people's guts splattered all over Grandma's kitchen and moviegoers scratching their heads.Usually, moviegoers like me can get enough of a hint about where the movie is headed before we see it or at least before we sit through more than the first ten or twenty minutes. Many years ago, before the internet and this website, someone I knew insisted that we had to go to a fantastic new film called Halloween at the mall theater, but as many times as I asked, he would say that, no, he didn't know anything about what kind of film it was or who was in the film but that he knew for a fact that it was a great film that we absolutely had to go see. So we did to the theater, and the house was packed, but within three minutes into the film, I said, no, I'm sorry, I am not sitting through this, you should have told me, and then I got up and left. And unless maybe we are watching a John Waters film-sort of film and know what to expect, we do NOT want to see white-haired, arthritic, Bible-thumping Grandma masturbating herself to a televangelist-—it's as clever and subtle as a pipe wrench. I would though have more respect for writer/director Richard Bates, Jr. if he had cast his own grandmother from real life to play crazy Grandma Violet.

Or was that mad? Whichever one it is, there is not always a clear or just one answer to that question. The movie is not really here to make friends either. A. Granier is really someone who is not very likable most of the time. But can you blame him? That's after you see where he came from or what he had to "suffer" (some call it childhood).Family matters ... sometimes it matters too much. So much that you lose sight of other things. And both our male and female lead can attest to that. But while it is not about winning any popularity or beauty contest it also does not pull any punches. It may get ugly, but it is coherent for the world it portrays. Not an easy watch and not for the squeamish either. But different in a good (read: bad) way!

There's a quote that this movie reminds me of - "Horror is not a genre, but an emotion." Is this a typical horror movie? No. Is this an atypical horror movie? Absolutely.From the beginning, the dialogue and characters pull us into their unhealthy relationship...all stemming from the protagonist feeling guilty for burning his parents to death, and leaving his sister disfigured. Not only is he unable to form healthy, loving relationships as an adult, he also has seizures periodically (one of which is in a classic bedroom scene). When his girlfriend tells him she's pregnant, the idea does not go over well, but he does have a revelation that he wants to really try to love. She demands they visit his grandmother and sister so he can make reprimands and learn to become a healthy family. From the second they arrive, the relationship with the religious zealot Grandmother is tense...and it only gets worse from there. The emotions boil over, and once we see the true misguided darkness in the Grandmother. Everything is balanced with humor. The climax builds slowly, and the final scene explodes. This is definitely not a horror movie for those wanting mindless slashing and brutality. I would have given this horror movie a 9 or 10 if the ending had a little more power, like the director's previous work, "Excision." But I felt the final scene lacked a little shock value. Other than that, the movie is fantastic...horror, but not typical. If you liked "Excision," you won't be disappointed.

Saw this last night at TAD. It came after one of the best, if not the best, films we've ever seen there -- "Under the Shadow". Coming out of "Under the Shadow" we said the next show has a tough act to follow. Oh boy! Should have known we were in trouble when they play the director comments and he mock apologized for the angst we were about to feel at the ending. He should have apologized for the whole thing and we should have left right then and there. We suffered for the first half hour of mean, nasty and pointless urban couple bickering. Think of the worst couple conversations you've heard on the subway in the course of your life and you get the idea. It was horrible, but not horror (unless you think "Heart of Darkness" where Kurtz sums up the whole African experience for him as "The horror! the horror!").Anyway, the rating sums it up. 1 star because you can't give 0 stars.