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The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (2025)
OCTOBER 16, 2025
GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREMIERE SCREENING)
I saw the original The Hand That Rocks The Cradle in theaters, but can't recall if I ever saw it a second time. If I did it had to have been right when it came to video, because before we watched this remake a friend noted Julianne Moore was in the original and I had no idea; I was only 12 when I saw it for the first (only?) time but by the mid 90s I had a mega crush on her and have been convinced for 30 years that the first time I saw her was via her bit part in The Fugitive. But even with my hazy memory, it didn't take long for me to realize that this version was, at least in theory, the right kind of remake, where it took the same basic plot but changed all the details, letting it succeed or fail on its own terms instead of just copying what someone else did thirty years ago.
So the two line pitch is the same: a career woman with two children decides to hire a nanny to help out, and after a few weeks of feeling the woman is the answer to all her problems, the mother starts to suspect that this "helper" might be dangerous. And she's right, as it turns out the nanny has a personal vendetta against the mom, and is seeking revenge. But this take changes all the details, and even weirdly hides the woman's agenda from us until the third act. In the original, we knew all along why the nanny (Rebecca DeMornay) targeted this family: the mom (Annabella Sciorra) had testified against DeMornay's rapey doctor husband, but here it's only revealed an hour or so into it.
Don't worry, it's not that new nanny Polly (Maika Monroe) hides her intentions until then. It's actually amusing how casual she is about some of her early transgressions, like poisoning one of mom's (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) dishes before a dinner party. But the switch means we never have the same kind of unnerving sympathy we felt for the DeMornay version, so she just comes off as another random psycho, and it's too late to fix the movie by the time we find out she actually has a good reason to want to go after Winstead and her family. Of course, since it's a third act reveal I can't get into it, but I can say it's very clunkily handled throughout, so it never quite works as (seemingly?) intended - despite her reason, we are never once sympathetic to her plight.
It doesn't help that the script is one of those ones where large chunks of the movie wouldn't even happen if people acted like normal human beings. Taking Moore's place as the meddling friend is Martin Starr, who goes through Monroe's trash and gets some of her DNA to run a background check on her. He finds out this tragic connection, but rather than call his best friend and tell her about it, he randomly has Monroe over and invites her in (to "explain herself") even though he's only doing this because she's already weirded them out enough to get suspicious. We also have to just roll with the idea that Winstead, who is overly protective to the extent that she won't even allow the family to have certain kinds of pesto sauce because of the oils in them, would settle for just one random reference by a complete stranger before allowing this woman to watch her children alone.
And then there's the stop sign. Early on, a neighbor speeds past their house and hits the baby stroller after it rolls out of their driveway (empty, thankfully), so Winstead says "There should be a stop sign there" as the scene continues, then repeats it in closeup. Then there's talk of a meeting about having one put up. Then there's a completely baffling scene where she's driving along and suddenly pulls over, gets out of her car, and inspects a different (busted) stop sign elsewhere. Later on her and Starr actually stand outside and watch the stop sign be installed, so by now they've clearly beaten us over the head enough that this stop sign is going to play a major part in the climax. But all it is is... someone misses the stop sign and causes an accident that dictates how the rest of the final fight goes. Personally, I think an ironic payoff, where the other driver DOES stop and Winstead realizes that her helicopter-y ways can be a detriment, or a running Monroe was able to get further away because the car stopped instead of plowing right into her, would have at least made this ridiculously blunt bit of foreshadowing pay off.
It's also simply not that suspenseful or tense. The highlight for such things is probably a scene where Winstead comes home and finds Monroe hanging with her husband and also her girlfriend, and that's only because we know in the original that DeMornay had designs on Sciorra's hubby so it stands to reason that this incarnation might follow suit. But nah, nothing really comes of it, nor do they explore the interesting idea that Monroe may actually be into Winstead's bisexual character (and vice versa). A goofy little bit where Winstead removes one of Monroe's socks while she sleeps is about as close as they get to having the women get intimate, which would have been at least a new dynamic to explore, especially since they establish her and her husband haven't had sex since the baby was born. Then again relationships aren't the movie's strong suit across the board; poor Riki Lindhome pops up as Starr's girlfriend in two scenes, the first of which has her lamenting that she wants a baby (with Starr saying that they'll discuss it later) but in the second we learn they don't even live together, making the idea that they're apparently talking about having a child a bit premature. Why they cast Lindhome to play this role, which would be thankless even for a first time performer, is beyond me.
(Without spoiling particulars, the movie perhaps inadvertently creates its best moment in this second scene. If you watch it, consider what Lindhome plans to do for Starr's sake, and what happens to him next.)
The score is also bizarrely ill-fitting, often sounding more like the soundtrack to a movie about a drug trip or maybe some kind of A24 drama. Not the end of the world, but adds to the feeling that this was a movie where a producer said "I have the rights to remake this movie!" and everyone that got involved after had a different idea of how to modernize this '90s staple. As with The Stepfather, modern technology makes a lot of these kind of plots harder to pull off, because you can just Google/check social media for anyone and learn more about them than Winstead does with her one (1) phone call to an unknown reference (who eventually re-enters the story and is yet another person in the movie who can't be bothered to act like a normal human being). So they side step that sort of thing and just hope we won't notice, despite (again) establishing Winstead as an overbearing worry wort.
Basically: it just doesn't work, man. The leads do their best and it's always nice to see a modern movie being shot in Los Angeles, but without any real thrills and a convoluted backstory, there's just nothing that justifies its existence, either. After a while the audience was laughing at it (it's not a comedy), so was at least an amusing experience to see this direct to streamer movie with a crowd, but that's not going to apply to you watching alone at home. I mean you can give it a shot I guess (bring a few friends over?), but if your Hulu subscription is about to expire, I certainly wouldn't renew it just to see it if I were you.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Blu-Ray Review: Night of the Living Dead (1990)
OCTOBER 13, 2025
GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: 4K UHD (OWN COLLECTION)
A while back during the glory days of HMAD, I spent a week on different versions of Night of the Living Dead, including this 1990 remake. (The others were the 3D one with Sid Haig, an animated one, and the godless "30th anniversary" recut version.) In my review of the original DVD, I noted that it surprisingly had some bonus features, considering the film was a flop and, being a library title, meant new features would have to be created (as opposed to modern films, which have EPK crews and commentaries recorded before the film is even released, so if it tanks, the stuff all exists already so they might as well put it on there). And thankfully, Sony has seen fit to carry them all over to this new 4K UHD set, along with other ones that were created for a standard Blu-ray in 2016.
But the main draw is that the film is presented in Tom Savini's preferred director's cut form, restoring the gore that the MPAA made him cut and also offering the first few minutes in black & white; an homage to the original that the studio wouldn't let him do at the time. So when Barbara (Patricia Tallman) and Johnny (Bill Moseley) are driving to the cemetery and doing the whole "They're coming to get you!" sequence, it's all in B&W like the original, with the color only showing up when the first zombie attacks Barbara few minutes later. It's a fun little gimmick, and I'm glad Savini was finally able to show us all how it would look (though I must admit I did momentarily worry that the entire film would be stripped of its color, a trend I do not have much patience for).
Unfortunately, if you're expecting other major changes, that's pretty much it - everything else is just a little bit of gore here and there. Apparently even in its "X rated" form, the film was pretty tame in that department, and I am willing to bet that if the film were shown to the censors even a few years later, it would have passed with an R easily as they got more lenient after their overly conservative approach to the '80s horror fare. The most overt restoration occurs when Barbara is trying to prove to the others (mostly the hysterical Judy) that the things attacking them are not human, shooting a zombie a few times in the chest before taking him out with the standard shot to the head. In the cut version we've had for 35 years, he is shot and goes down quick without any real splatter, but now a nice little geyser of blood explodes up from the top of his head before he drops. Again, if you just saw this uncut version for your first viewing, you'd never guess the MPAA ever had a problem with it, but for those who have watched it a bunch, it's sadly the highlight of such re-insertions.
The 4K transfer looks spectacular though, and for those who had the Twilight Time Blu, you can be relieved that the weird recoloring that they gave it for that release has been undone, and it looks like it should again. I know it's an overly bright film at times (even at night), but I never minded it all that much, and I'd take that look over the bizarre recoloring that we had to deal with if we wanted the film in high def. Even the B&W sequence (which, to be clear, was a normally filmed scene that had its color removed in post) looks really good to my eyes, and I had to chuckle that one scene actually made more sense to me now, as I never realized Sarah was laying on one of the doors that Ben wanted to board stuff up with, as the image was always too murky to really tell what she was laying on. When Harry says "You want this one too?" I always thought he was referring to the girl herself, like that Ben wanted to bring her up to the main floor as he did Tom and Judy Rose! I will happily junk my DVD, now.
As for bonus features, again Sony has brought back pretty much everything of note that I could find (thanks, DVDCompare.net!), including Savini's commentary and a retrospective documentary called "The Dead Walk!" from the DVD. They also included everything from the 2016 special edition Blu-ray, which mostly consists of new interviews with Tallman, the Optic Nerve FX guys, and Savini himself. That actually would have been plenty, but they really went all out and offer a bunch of brand new bonus features on top of the already generous assortment, making this a true ultimate edition.
The big one is a new commentary with Savini, moderated by Michael Felsher (whose Red Shirt Pictures produced all of the new features). I actually noted when I watched his original commentary that he might be better off with a partner, as he often went silent and just watched the movie, so I'm glad they listened! Felsher keeps him talking, with the only silences most likely being edits (Sony is notoriously cautious about potential "dirt" being spilled on their tracks). He also seems to remember the film better than its director; more than once Savini will say "OK now watch this" and then Felsher will have to remind him that the moment won't be coming for several more seconds. At any rate, it's a much better track than the older one.
Then there are several new interviews with Moseley, Bill Butler (Tom), McKee Anderson (Helen) and Heather Mazur (Sarah), who has the funniest recollection in that the FX team kept getting annoyed with her showing up in full "pretty girl" makeup (she was 13 and boy crazy at the time) because they had to spend time cleaning it all off before applying her zombie look. There's also one with editor Tom Dubensky, two of the guys who played zombies, and (sigh) John Russo along with Russ Streiner, who shouldn't be allowed within 50 yards of anything involving this franchise after their godawful 30th anniversary thing, but oh well. At least they have nice things to say about it. It's unfortunate that they couldn't have gotten this going before Tony Todd (or Tom Towles for that matter) passed away, as their absence is notable when it has thoughts from pretty much everyone else involved (sans Romero, but as it wasn't really his thing, it's not essential to hear from him and several of the interviews note that he did show up on set a few times and gave the editor some notes).
But really, while all the bonus features and the restored images are great, the best thing about rewatching this particular take on the story in the year 2025 is that it actually has a message of how we all need to calm down and listen to our fellow man. While Cooper is an even bigger jerk here than he was in the OG, at the end of the day he was not only right about the basement being safer, but if Ben had at least taken a few minutes to go down and see it for himself, he might have found the key to the gas that would have saved them all. Ben is also quick to assume Harry is stealing the TV, and throughout the movie Barbara has good ideas that are ignored. I feel a number of the problems in the world right now (both on a macro and micro level) are the result of everyone thinking they are right and everyone else is wrong, and this is a movie that could have had a much happier ending if people just took the time to hear someone else's perspective instead of stubbornly accepting only their own. Something to consider!
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...
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