Naty's Spooky Corner

Come to Daddy

★★★★★

Sunday, May 2, 2021, 11:11 PM

Alright ya’ll this title says it all, I clearly don’t even need to review this movie. Okay, but in all serious-ness, let’s get into this hootenanny.

In the 2020 film, we are introduced to Norval, a stereotypical LA hipster, on his way to a secluded cabin to meet his estranged father after receiving a letter from him. Eager to catch up on decades of lost time, Norval tries his best to form an intimate bond with the strange man standing before him who seems less than eager to meet his son. Their strained interactions grow increasingly tense, until it becomes clear that Norval is no longer welcome.

I highly encourage anyone who is even remotely interested in this film - do not read about it. I promise you, this movie is a wild crazy absurd ride that is best enjoyed when approached with zero expectations.

Because of this, part of my usual movie summary will be found in the spoilers section, rather than in the opening paragraph.

Spoiler Alert Ahead:

After a very tense series of interactions seen between Norval and his father, the audience is left stunned when their final argument leaves his dad lying stone cold dead from a heart attack. What’s worse, due to a flood, his now dead and embalmed corpse has to remain alongside him until his mother arrives. Burdened with guilt and longing for what could have been a better relationship, Norval is plagued with echoes in the night that become more and more frequent and impossible to ignore.

I’ll just go ahead and say it. I know I wasn’t the only person that thought this was going to be just another supernatural film after the “dad” dies. And oh boy was I painfully wrong. After discovering the secret basement in his fathers cabin, Norval bravely travels down to face whatever has been taunting him during his lonely, spiraling days, and of course quickly realizes that those seemingly sentient bumps in the night were actually his imprisoned father! This revelation forces Norval to quickly step out of his comfort zone and learn how to fight back against his fathers captors or else face death and worse.

At first, our main character struggles with this violent burden since it's so foreign to him, but as the story progresses throughout each act, Norval transforms from a soft new age individual, to an adrenaline-fueled murderer, and finally to a sad desperate killer with nothing left to lose. The deaths of Jethro and Curly, while justifiable, best capture Norval’s deranged descent into his new reality. Curly suffers a gut-wrenching stabbing in his...well...his lower extremities, while Jethro faces the more sobering, slow death after revealing more of Norval’s unknown past to him, showing us the underlying complexity behind their violent intentions as well.

Ultimately, this film shows us, the audience, just how many atrocities a man can commit if pushed far enough. And to never expect a straight-foward answer to the question “Why did you send me that letter”?

Overall Rating: 3/5

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