Film Review: The Strange Thing About the Johnsons
There’s a question that’s been going on in Cinema about how Horror films have lost their appeal. Gone are the glory days where slasher films used to be all you needed to keep the audience scared to their core. There was a time when horror films would have movie-goers needing therapy for all they put themselves through to watch the film. Horror films had genres within the genres namely ‘slasher’: which had films like Jason X, Nightmare on Elm street and Candyman , these films were focused on the gore blood of evil characters butchering their victims to death. Then there way Zombie films like Night of the Living Dead, which was focused on decomposed corpses of the people rising back to life to hunt and kill the living. We had demonic Horror films like The exorcist, Ghostfilms and found footage films like The Blair Witch Project. In the 2010’s the world saw a decline in Horror films. Perhaps we became desensitized as people. Or maybe people ran out of ideas on how to scare people. Few films could captivate audiences the way the Horror films of before did, films like The Conjuring. One modern film maker who is still able to accomplish this is a filmmaker by the name Ari Arister.
Ari Arister is renowned for his work on his modern horror classics Hereditary, and Midsommar. These two films have a storyline that is just as frightening as it is profound. Those two films are easily at the top of modern horror. However when Arister speaks on his films there’s only one film he is utterly disgusted in himself for making. This film was called “The Strange Thing About The Johnsons”. This film was the first one he got acknowledged for but at what cost?
The Johnsons can be described as an upper middle class family living in suburbia. Sidney the husband is the epitome of a soft hearted, gentle, empathetic father who is loved by many people. Sidney is also a famous writer. He has a wife named Joan who is a beautiful suburban woman, they live together with their son Isiah who is a charming charismatic young boy. Everything seems conventional and down to earth but Isiah has a dark side.
In the opening scene we find Isiah lying in his bed masturbating to a photo. His father enters the room and unexpectedly catches Isiah in the act. Isaiah was embarrassed to say the least, Sidney sits down to reassure his son that what he’s feeling is natural and just a part of life.
As Sidney walks away his son tells his dad he loves him. At the end of the scene he puts the photo down and the camera shows it to be his own father in his younger years. Now the fast forwards to Isiah and his family during Isiah’s wedding ceremony. The scene shows him taking photos with his family and his father Sidney looks absolutely distraught, defeated and mortified. The scene then shows Isiah gripping his father’s posterior during the photo shoot. The wedding goes on as normal but in this scene the mother is looking for both Isiah and his father only to find Sidney being molested by his son Isiah in another area around the house. Horrified, she turns around and proceeds back to the gathering. Sidney has written a memoir of his son taking advantage of him since he was 12, he names the memoir “Cocoon Man”. The son finds out about this memoir and he is even more enraged and tells his father to burn the manuscript. Things reach a fever pitch after Isiah violently rapes Sidney for no reason at all. Sidney then prints out another copy of this manuscript and then Isiah confronts him yet again. Isaiah ran out of the house onto the road where he was run over by a car and he died. After the funeral the Mom confronts Isiah about the violations he committed against his father and Isiah responds in an unapologetic way. Joan then proceeds to kill Isaiah, and after that the film ends.
Horror films evoke fear in different ways. They use imagery and sounds that would terrify a human being blatantly. Then some films use gore blood and weaponry to evoke fear. But some films are psychologically damaging. This film uses unique and original tools to shock the audience by depicting the disturbia in suburbia.
The cinematography captures the easy-going atmosphere enjoyed by a typical upper class family. Sidney’s calm demeanor adds emphasis on the fact that this is a happy conservative harmless life they are living. This mood allows for the audience to be taken off guard when the lewd scenes are taking place. This contrast between storybook cinematography and disgusting activity adds a layer of discomfort for the audience that makes you want to look away but you can’t stop watching.
In this film the audience is saturated with Sympathy for Sidney. Sidney was so gentle and kind to his son but he didn’t have the heart to stand up to his son let alone punish him for his actions against his body. He chose to love him and help him see his way through. Isaiah embodies narcissism like none other, even threatening to kill himself in his younger years if his father resisted his advances.
The problem with Joan is that she only acted and confronted Isiah when it was too late. You can see during her last encounter with Isiah the grief she had overcame her love for her own son. She was so caught up in her own guilt for knowing what had happened to Sidney all this time and still letting it go because Isiah was only a child. Isaiah was in his own way the Oedipus Rex but only this time the father was the object of his affection.
The captivating factor about this film was the fact that it was a black upper class family. This was an astronomical level of incest which was both disturbing and disgusting in the ways that no slasher film could possibly come close to. No amount of jump scares, or superficial overused themes can compete with this picture.
Overall I think the true theme of this film is how letting things go and not taking action will eventually ruin you in the end. This film can also be symbolic in teaching people the value of tough love. However we can all agree that this film is also a cautionary tale on the benefits of having boundaries and establishing them firmly. Sidney shares the blame for what his son did to him and that’s what makes Sidney the problem. Isaiah needed professional help, Isaiah needed to be put in an asylum. But Sidney allowed his son to continue his reign of terror and the mom swept everything under the rug just to keep things normal but by the time Sydney died it was too late. Confrontation does save lives and the relationships, Sidney thought the universe would deal with Isiah but nothing will change until you do.
Overall As much as this 30 minute film deserves a solid 8/10, I do not encourage any person who cherishes their sanity and appetite to not watch this film.
