The first movie, Goodnight Mommy, is about a woman and her twin sons, Elias and Lukas, living together as the mother has just come back home from face reconstructive surgery. The movie gives no explanation at first as to why the mother had this surgery. Nonetheless, her face is covered in bandages – a very creepy and unsettling picture. The two twin brothers do everything together. Since the mother has come home she has become very distant, even refusing to talk to one of her sons, Lukas, but we do not know why. The mother tells her sons that her doctor has required her to get rest and that there are certain rules the boys should follow so that the mother can get her rest. Of course, the boys start to break rules. The mother gets angry and locks the boys in their room. During the course of all this the boys get it in their head that their mother is not their actual mother because of her unusual behavior. But instead, the woman is pretending to be their mother. After this, the dynamic completely shifts. One morning the mother wakes up and her hands and feet are tied to the bed. Her sons are holding her captive and questioning her for the whereabouts of their ‘real mother’. Various torture tactics are used; the boys burn a piece of her face with a magnifying glass, they shove a stick in her mouth to prevent her from talking, they glued her mouth shut, and her eyes. The whole time the woman is insisting that she is their mother, but the boys, especially Lukas, do not believe her. Finally, the boys attempt to burn the house down but before they get the chance it is revealed that Lukas had been dead the whole time and was actually just a figment of Elias’ imagination. The weird scenes in the movie finally make, sense such as why the mother refused to speak or feed Lukas, why Elias was the only one to talk to outsiders, why the mother only gave Elias a gift at one point in the movie. Also, the mothers reconstructive face surgery must have had to happen because of the accident that left Lukas dead. In the end, Elias burns the house down, killing himself and his mother. But on the positive side, Elias, Lukas, and their mother are all together again.
The second movie, Antibodies, is about a serial killer named Gabriel Engel and a small-town policeman named Michael Martens. The movie begins with the arrest of the serial killer Gabriel and then panels to the policeman’s town where a young girl had been gruesomely murdered. The policeman feels there is reason to believe Gabriel has killed the little girl, so he goes downtown to meet the killer in person and interrogate him. The conversations the policeman, Michael, has with Gabriel take a toll on him and begin to break down his faith in what’s good. Gabriel tries to convince Michael that human beings are inherently evil, including Michael himself. This proves to work on Michael as he gives into temptation and cheats on his wife (something he previously never believed he would do). Not only did Gabriel weaken the foundation of Michaels marriage, but he convinces Michael that his own son is the actual person to have killed that little girl. Disturbed and disgusted by this news, Michael believes the only way to stop his son from becoming a serial killer like Gabriel is to kill him. Just before Michael is about to take his sons life his colleagues arrive at the scene with evidence proving Michael’s son did not commit the murder of the little girl. Michael almost fell for Gabriel’s lies and evil almost prevailed.
There were multiple emics portrayed in these movies. Both movies were psychological by nature; these movies were not meant to make you scream, but were meant to mess with your mind. Both movies have plot twists and/or surprises. Signs of Catholicism were hinted at numerous times throughout both movies; crucifixes were displayed intentionally for the viewer to see all throughout both movies, there were also church scenes in both movies. It was interesting to see how important it was for both directors to add religion into their movies. Another aspect present in both films was nudity of both male and female. Also, both movies portrayed predominantly independent characteristics of the self. In the first movie, the twin boys did whatever they felt they needed (torture) to get what they wanted. The boys did not care at all that they were harming and going against a parent figure, they felt zero need to respect their mother’s interests, but only their own. In the second movie, the policeman also follows his own desires as he loses his morals and does whatever he wants, he is not thinking of his family (his relationships), but solely himself. Overall, both movies were interesting. The first movie, Goodnight Mommy, was spookier in my opinion because of the ghost theme while the second movie, Antibodies, was more so disturbing in my opinion as it dealt with serial killings and child murder. Out of a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being least scary and 5 being most scary) I would rate both movies at a 3.
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