So, the wife says to me “I just started watching a movie. I think it’s horror but its about a bunch of gamers. I think you’d like it.”
I sit down to watch it with her.
It turns out it is the movie Uncanny Annie. It was sort of like Jumanji but darker.
Warning! Spoilers ahead.
This group of college aged friends are gathering on Hallowe’en to play games. They find a bunch of old games in the basement. They bring them to the main living room. They look through the games and decide on the game Uncanny Annie. Without further ado, or even bothering to read what the game is about, they sit down to play.
There is the cute sounding note about playing the game to the end if you want to see the sun again.
Each player takes a turn, getting a task they must complete, or they face the consequences. As can be easily predicted, things start getting nasty once one of them fails their task.
The house they are in gets cut off from the rest of reality and is surrounded by a dark plane of nothingness. It is controlled by the titular Annie, a little girl who likes playing games with her prey.
One by one, the players are picked off, until the last two players are left. One of them is supposed to kill her friend with a portable power drill, one of the ‘weapons’ the players gathered earlier in the movie to defend themselves. The last player seemingly defeats Annie by plunging it into the game box instead, and destroying Annie. And of course Annie comes back to pick her off saying the player ‘broke the rules.’
That’s what annoys me about horror movies. The villain always comes back at the end, for the flimsiest of reasons, to get the final victim. It always feels like bad storytelling to me. Yeah, I get the trope of the hero made it through and should be safe but surprise! they get killed anyway. I guess it is expected with horror movies, that sort of last shock for effect, and making sure you know that no one gets a happy ending. But again, it doesn’t make a satisfying story in my opinion.
I decided to look up the definition of the word ‘uncanny’ just because I was curious about its exact definition.
It means ‘mysterious or impossible to explain, especially when causing uneasiness or astonishment.’
To look it up, I pulled out my phone and typed ‘define u’ in the search bar, nothing else beyond that. Instantly, a definition for the word ‘uncanny’ displayed.
It was uncanny!
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