User Reviews

I am surprised that in viewing the other reviews made by viewers of this movie none of them seemed to put together that this is based, albeit loosely, on a REAL event. The story has been altered a good deal but it is still recognizably based on an event that occurred in 2001. They have based the movie on the story of Derek and Alex King who came under the spell of a neighboring pedophile who recognized their thirst for attention and desire for a male role model's attention. The boys were only 12 and 13 years old at the time and they had been bounced around foster homes and family members for a good while and had not lived together during those times. When a neighbor, who was a friend of their fathers, began watching over them while their father was away and began showering them with attention and gifts and treats they never got in any other case, the boys quickly fell under his spell. It all ended with the boys being molested and under the neighbors spell and with his direction one of the boys killed his father with a baseball bat while he sat in a chair. For the details and more complete actual story you can simply do a search of their names, Alex and Derek King. The movie loosely follows what happened while changing numerous details such as using only 1 boy and having the neighbor pedophile shot dead in an exchange with law enforcement. In reality he received a 30 year prison sentence and the boys received 7 and 8 year sentences, incarcerating them until they became adults. I have seen that some watchers thought the movie went to slow but I fail to see that. I was also some what surprised to not see any indication about it being based on a real incident. Perhaps because the boys were young minors at the time. I myself was fascinated by the movie and I recognized the the association with actual events after only a few minutes. I would suggest that perhaps viewers might want to read about the actual event after watching the movie. The movie depicts the terrible cost that pedophiles inflict upon their victims, both immediate and through out their lives. I see the movie as a cautionary tale of what can happen when we fail to treat our kids as human beings and as the most important things we have. The abuse of children, physical or psychological, is a terrible thing.

Early in "The Strange Ones," there is a crucial scene in which the two main characters, the twenty-something Nick and the teenage Sam, are on the road, clearly running away from their past. Sam's home has been burnt to the ground, and, inside, the body of his father has been found, not a victim of the fire, but of being bludgeoned to death.

Nick and Sam arrive at a motel with an inviting swimming pool. The kind lady proprietor offers them free lodging during the off season. But then, the young kid Sam has a conversation with the woman, in which he calls his "brother" a liar and suggests that the woman may be in danger due to the brother's penchant for violence. Afterwards, Nick and Sam make a quick exit from the motel after the woman has likely shown them the door.

What are we to make of Sam's advice to the hotel manager? Was he telling the truth about his psychotic older friend? Or was he lying because he himself is the psycho and is only behaving like the sadistic little kid that he is?

The film keeps the audience guessing about the true nature of the road buddies, and it does so with psychological symbols and archetypes, such as the black cat, the cave, and the Oedipal complex.

One might argue that the film is overly manipulative of its audience. In one scene at a wilderness retreat for young people, the wily man who heads up the program asks Sam to recount his recurring nightmare. The audience views the nightmare in which Sam kills his father. But is the dream a distortion of reality, or was this a true depiction of the murder?

One of the strengths of the film is the evocation of a sinister mood. An ominous feeling hovers over most of the scenes and the characters. While walking through the woods, Nick and Sam encounter a middle age couple, and the mundane conversation is filled with dark undercurrents. Sam arrives at the children's camp and observes a couple of the boys engaged in theft or some activity that is verboten; they insist to Sam that he not reveal what he saw to the camp manager. Is this really recreational camp for youngsters, or is it a penal colony/rehab center for juvenile delinquents?

In the most bizarre scene of all, a female classmate of Sam has invited him to live in her home after the death of his father. But the scene in the bedroom with two teenagers is grotesque, unwholesome, and disturbing, especially when the young woman reveals that she covered for Sam when telling the police that he was just joking when he texted her that he wanted to kill his father! She also waxes philosophical when saying that "You never really know a person, you know." And yet, she seems to know all of the intimate details of the troubled history of young Sam. In the scene following the bedroom conversation, Sam hightails it out of the house with his backpack, heading back to the wilderness.

This ominous road picture about two young males who at best are pathological liars and at worst cold blooded murderers and arsonists, may be summed up in this snippet of dialogue:

--"Where are we?" --"Nowhere."

Indeed, the state of mind of the two strange ones may not be found on any traditional road map, but only in the deepest, darkest caverns of the human psyche.

Did Sam kill his father or did Nick really do it? Does Sam having nightmares about killing his father himself actually represent that he did, or in the alternative, represent the guilt he feels because he wished he had? With so many flashbacks and over use of symbolism, there's just no way to know. If anyone tells you one way or the other they're lying to you - as well as to themselves.

There's more guilt about the cat and abandoning it. Two of the imagined sightings create a different possible ending: One death and the other a new beginning. Again, there's no way to know what the true situation actually is and perhaps that's the point. To offer each viewer a choice for it to end the way in which they'd like it to have? After all, there's more than one reference to the power of ones mind and what's real and what isn't. All one has to do is believe it.

Needless to say, I believe this film outsmarts itself and left me wishing I had watched something else. The acting saved it from a lower rating but could not rescue it.

I don't like movies that are all over the place. Was the boy raped by his neighbor/brother or beat and raped by his father? Or maybe his neighbor/brother was saving him from his fathers abuse. I wish I never watched it all it did was leave me confused to what it was about, I like a full complete storyline a beginning, middle and end.

The movie begins with an unsettling scene and immediately you know this is an abused kid.

The next scene is the kid's talking to an attendant, while being watched warily by his older "brother". Now for me this planted the first clue - that's not his brother and is this about child molestation? The reason that came to mind was, years ago, I was on a road trip by bus across the country, stopping at places like in the movie. This old guys walks up to me as I waited for my mom with my 5 year old son, and said, watch out for chicken hawks.

Next the rather startling comment the kid makes about his brother having sex with the motel manager and "using" her "hole". And the conversation he had with her. Was he taking about his brother, not his brother, or himself?

I really didn't see any particular affection or chemistry between him and the brother, and the question remains - who was doing the molesting or abusing? Who did the killing?

The idea for this movie may have come from a real life story, in which the boys did the killing. And the "brother" (actually a neighbor) did the molesting.

The cinematography bumped it up a star, but it seemed like a story that's been done many times before, except the writer and director wanted to make this an artsy version. The slow pacing was a little too much and made me want to fast forward many times. You basically have a good idea of what this story is from the beginning, it just feels like it's taking too long for the actors to confirm it. They could have made this so much more interesting and ominous but chose to go another route and make it the equivalent of a slooooow southern drawl coming from cousin Cletus- the one who got kicked in the head by a mule when he was younger.

Overall, Not worth a watch. There are similar stories out there done much better.

********* Spoilers on just basic plot **********

It's basically about a boy abused by his father, and that he wishes was dead. The boy realizes he can murder his dad and run off with his caretaker, a young man who lives next door and watches after him when the dad is at work. The boy seems to be enamored by his caretaker but you are never sure if he wants him to be his brother, his father figure, or his lover (although they allude to the last one toward the end). I think he just wants to be with someone who shows him kindness and caring and he views as a protector.

The boy kills his dad, the caretaker sets fire to the house to possibly hide evidence and the two go on the run towards the woods where the caretaker had good memories. On the road the boy displays jealousy at a girl taking interest in his caretaker, making his interest in his caretaker more murky. Eventually they end up in the woods and after a session of teaching the boy to shoot, the caretaker shoots in the air thinking he is scaring a bear away but he gets shot and tells the boy to run. It's the cops, who have tracked them down, and the caretaker is killed.

The boy ends up on a work farm, but the police eventually find him and he is asked questions and makes it seem like his caretaker was responsible for everything.He is told the caretaker is dead and he goes in the bathroom and cries showing how much he cared for him. He is taken to the hospital and checked over and we are told there are no signs of sexual abuse. A friend and her mom pick him up to stay with them. The girl likes him but when she makes a move on him he tells her to stop and she alludes to the fact that he was in love with his caretaker and she also knows he wanted to kill his dad. He also reveals to her that he really wants to take care of animals on a farm someday- obviously thinking back about his time on the work farm.

He leaves the girl's house the next day and is hit by a car- going after his metaphor of a cat once again (which he's done several times throughout the movie). Next we see him on the work farm and the man who runs it asks him how his arm is doing so it's now much later after he's healed. Then in flashbacks, we see scenes where he has told his caretaker about his abuse, and the caretaker responds that if he ever sees him abusing him, he would kill him. And it is confirmed that he is the one who killed his dad. He now just has to live with what he's done while he stays on the work farm like he wanted. Unsurprising ending.

A typical story about child molestation and abduction with a twist of Stockholm Syndrome. It seemed really easy to follow with no true twists or turns. The acting was great by everyone in the movie, the ending was predictable and if the watcher pays attention to the pool scene they will understand or at least puzzle together the ending beforehand. The short with the same title is a bit more easier to follow with slight changes/differences (kid supposedly has concerned parents). Ultimately, the movie closes the ideas presented and the ending is as expected. We recommend this movie for people to have patience to watch. We turned away more than once and we were able to follow the movie. Comes to mind (for movie not short): "What would you do for love?" Have Fun...