Original Review Date: January 12, 2010
First, I’d like to begin by saying that I’ve never read the book. Which is probably a good thing, because after reading the book’s plot, I might have been disappointed.
The Lovely Bones is hands down, the scariest movie I’ve ever seen in my whole life. We all know, that I hated Paranormal Activity, felt it failed as both a movie and as a horror movie, and that anyone who thought it was scary is very very lame. But the Lovely Bones…just thinking about parts of the film sends shivers down my spine. First, a summary:
Suzie Salmon is a happy 14 year old girl who just got a camera for her birthday and takes pictures of everything. She’s in love with Ray, a British boy at school who asks her out on a date that Saturday. However, she never makes the date. On her way home from school on Friday, Suzie runs into Mr. Harvey, who tricks her into entering an underground den filled with toys. Once he starts looking at her and moaning, she realizes something is wrong and tries to escape. She makes it back to her house, but finding no one, goes upstairs, and heads into a room. She ends up in Harvey’s bathroom, where he sits in the tub, a washcloth over his face. The room is filthy, with a mix of blood and dirt all over, and from the sink, near a bloody knife, hangs Suzie’s bracelet. Realizing that she has been murdered, she lets out a terrifying scream of anguish.
Suzie watches from what seems to be Heaven, as her family copes with the tragedy. Her father and mother split up, because her father is obsessed with finding her killer, and isn’t there to support the mother, who moves away to California. Meanwhile, Suzie meets a young Vietnamese girl named Holly who tells her that she is in a place in between Heaven and Earth, with elements of both. They quickly become friends, but Suzie can’t help but watch over her family.
Lindsey, her younger sister, makes out with her first boy, something that Suzie laments she’ll never be able to do. Ray starts to fall in love with Ruth, an odd girl who seemed to have sense Suzie’s spirit go past the day she died, and seems to sense supernatural things.
Suzie’s dad eventually comes to realize that Harvey is the most likely suspect.
Meanwhile, Lindsey has noticed Harvey’s creepy tendency to stare out at her from the windows of his house, and has also begun to have suspicions of him. When the police say that nothing can be done without evidence, Suzie’s dad takes a bat from the house and goes out in search of Harvey, whom he saw heading into the cornfield at night. However, her dad is closing in not on Harvey but on a young couple who snuck out into the cornfield to fool around. He bumps into the girl, and the male beats him up, thinking he was there to spy on and molest his girlfriend. Harvey is seen watching nearby, but no one sees him.
The dad ends up severely injured, but will recover. Holly tells Suzie that everything happens for a reason, and while touching an icicle, states that everyone dies eventually. Suzie mentions dreaming every night of Harvey’s house, but being too afraid to enter. She finally does, and sees that she is not the only one of Harvey’s victims. The youngest victim was 6 years old. Holly was another one of his victims. Suzie’s memory comes back of exactly how she was murdered, and now knows that her body was stuffed into a burlap sack, and placed into the safe which is now in Harvey’s basement.
Lindsey sneaks into Harvey’s house to find evidence. She finds his sketchbook where he drew plans for the underground den, articles from the paper about Suzie’s murder, and finally, a picture of Suzie with a lock of her hair taped to it. However, Harvey has come home, and goes after her. She escapes, but barely, and runs straight home to show her father what she has found. When she gets there, her mother has come back, wanting to take care of the father, who has given up on finding Suzie. Lindsey decides not to show them the sketchbook because her family is now back together again. Though it seems she gives it to her grandmother.
Harvey clears out of his house, and takes the safe to a sinkhole, enlisting the help of the farmer to whom it belongs to dump the safe into the hole. Ruth and Ray are nearby, and upon looking at Harvey and the safe, Ruth realizes the truth. She also sees Suzie coming towards her from the other side of the window. When Suzie reaches her, she takes possession of Ruth’s body, and Ray immediately sees Suzie, and kisses her. Now Suzie is finally ready to move on. Meanwhile Harvey dumps the safe into the sinkhole and it is swallowed up by the earth, never to be found as the sinkhole is filled in with earth shortly after.
We later see an older Harvey, trying to pick up a teen girl, who blows him off. An icicle falls on his shoulder, making him lose his balance and fall off a cliff into a ravine where he dies. The end.
So…okay. This is a movie in which the family ends up together, the bad guy dies and the little girl goes to heaven. And yet…it still wasn’t really a satisfying ending. As far as we can tell, the police weren’t notified of Harvey’s crime, and no one ever went looking for him again. He pretty much gets away with all of his crimes. Sure, he dies, but it seems nobody really finds out about him, and the authorities never really go after him. Lindsey seems like she feels that now that her family’s back together, finding and making sure Suzie’s killer is brought to justice is no longer important. Suzie’s body is never found. It’s…kind of depressing.
Anyway, about the movie itself. A few of Suzie’s scenes in the ‘in-between’ are really cheesy looking. Like the part where she imagines being a famous celebrity and poses for cameras. But as I said, this movie was terrifying. From the second Harvey starts talking to Suzie, and especially once she’s inside the den, that entire exchange made me so uncomfortable. It was almost unwatchable. Had I rented this movie instead of been in a theater, I probably would have turned the movie off and refused to watch any further because honestly, it was such a disturbing scene, I can’t even properly describe it. Just goes to show that there’s more important things than blood and gore when you’re trying to scare an audience. If only the horror genre would learn that.
Harvey watching Lindsey from inside his house, and pretty much any scene he’s in had me bracing myself in fear and tension. And the part where Lindsey is upstairs in his house with him moving slowly downstairs looking for her…even the preview gave me chills. In general the effects were good, and the acting was really nice all around, with Ronan and Tucci (Suzie and Harvey) giving the best performances.
Still, some fails. Heavily featured in previews is Suzie’s line “My murderer underestimated how much a father could love his child.” How? And what did that line have to do with anything? Suzie’s dad doesn’t ever actually DO anything to Harvey. He just becomes suspicious, and then gets beat up by a HS kid, then decides to give up.
When Suzie finally gets to “real” heaven, she says “It’s so beautiful!” to which Holly says “Of course…it’s Heaven.” Except that it literally doesn’t look any different than it did about 5 seconds ago. Wtf.
If you’re looking for an uplifting movie, this is definitely not it. Still, it was a good, if extremely terrifying and uncomfortable watch, which I would recommend to you guys. Many elements are left out of the books, but overall, it’s a pretty good adaptation, and as long as you’re up for one of the most uncomfortable movie watching experiences you’ve ever had, you should probably check out this film.
The Method to the Madness 